A letter from our founder
Hi, I'm Akshat.
A little paper.
A wider world.
It was my dream to come to the U.S. for an education. My mission is to open an international school in Nepal.
Between those two dreams is a story about math, a few folded sheets of paper, and people who believed in me.
Let me start at the beginning
01 / The first lesson
First, give them
a reason to wonder.
On my first day tutoring at an orphanage in Nepal, no one wanted to learn math. I folded the paper in front of me, questions and all, into a plane and sent it flying.
The children gathered where it landed. Or fell, really. Right there, I understood: geometry could begin with origami. So origami we did.
That has stayed with me through years of teaching. Talk about their hobbies. Tell a story. Find the math in it together.
02 / A door opens
From Nepal,
into the world.
I represented Nepal at United World Colleges, where education had a purpose beyond the classroom. The UWC movement has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Then a full scholarship brought me to Macalester College in Minnesota. The education I had dreamed of became my everyday life.
03 / Building the next door
Math opened doors.
People helped me through.
My foundation in math took me into a forward-deployed AI engineering internship at a Saint Paul startup, and into investment banking as an analyst.
Along the way, mentors challenged me, encouraged me, and helped me keep going. With their support and the Twin Cities ecosystem behind me, I began presenting Nell & Key.
None of those chapters happened all at once. Each began with something I could try, and someone who helped me take the next step.
The story we're writing now
Two brothers.
Something worth sharing.
My brother and I taught each other at home. We shared a love of math, worked through difficult problems, and had someone cheering us on.
His path led to Oxford and doctoral research at UNC. My brother Abhigya is pursuing a math PhD there. Mine led to Macalester and years beside children discovering what they could do. Now we're building Nell & Key together. We both tutor here, alongside two tutors with Math Olympiad experience.
A child doesn't need another pile of questions. They need a reason to try, and someone to help them keep going.
Akshat