Commencement Speech at Maths.Biz, Mahindra University, Hyderabad, June, 2025

Transcript of the Maths.Biz Program Valedictory Address

by Kavitha Yaga Buggana

21^st June, 2025 at Mahindra University, Hyderabad

Hello everyone.

Thank you for the introduction.

I'm very grateful to the organizers of Math.Biz - Pravaha, Raising a Mathematician Foundation - for inviting me to give the valedictory address for this event and to Mahindra University for hosting the Math.Biz program in its world-class campus. Seeing the bright faces of all of you young students has really brightened up my day, I can tell you that.

When Vinoda and Hari first told me about your curriculum, I just could not believe the level of math and finance that you young people are learning. Your interest, dedication, and passion make us all very proud. So, congratulations on your achievement in finishing this challenging course.

Maths and science are indeed some of the crowning jewels of human achievement. There have been many books written about this. A few years ago, I had read a brilliant novel titled “When We cease to understand the World” by a Chilean writer called Benjamin Labatut. He writes a semifictional account of the lives and discoveries of a few of the visionaries in maths and science. Labatut writes about people like Alexander Grothendieck, who revolutionized algebraic geometry through deep abstraction, but withdrew from the world in a moral and existential crisis while questioning the role of science in society. Labatut writes about people like Fritz Haber, a Nobel Prize winning chemist, whose discovery of the Haber process proved crucial for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers, saving billions of people from starvation. The Haber process is also responsible for the synthesis of explosives used in bombs which led to the death of millions as well. Labatut writes about Schrödinger, whose famous thought experiment involving a cat illustrated the paradoxes of quantum mechanics and highlighted the limits of our ability to observe and define reality. For these people, math and science were not just work, but obsessions. Yet they were deeply aware of the philosophical and moral implications of their work.

Examining their lives shows how mathematics and science can, on one hand, completely transform the world by enabling technologies like quantum computing and the internet. Yet, maths and science also contribute indirectly to existential threats through military applications and perhaps even AI, which no one rarely understands fully at a fundamental level.

Like maths, finance is an abstraction of the real world. And the very process of abstraction that makes mathematical and financial modelling powerful also brings distance from the messiness of the real world. This deliberate distancing from the experiential can lead to erosions in our cognitive and moral frameworks. What is of singular importance is not abstract ideas and numbers, but how they impact the people and animals who share space with us on this sphere we call the Earth.

So, finance should be judged on its impact on the real world. Fluctuations in interest rates, for example, affect not just businesses and investments, but also impact savers, especially retirees and the financially vulnerable. Quantitative easing aims to stimulate growth, but can increase asset prices, making buying a house more expensive for young families.

We now live in a world of wonderful possibilities, unimaginable opportunities at our fingertips, and an age of prosperity and health. But we also live in a world of war and poverty for many people. We are facing the threat of climate change. We spend so much of our time staring at the black mirrors of cell phones and screens and AI chatbots. People are increasingly isolated, and the pursuit of material things is valued above all else. In this kind of world, the question that becomes most urgent is how to keep our humanity alive and thriving. How to keep it alive as a person, as a family, and as a society.

I don't know if there are any easy answers, but I try to keep these questions in mind as I go about my day. So, when you grow up and wield the powerful tools of mathematics and finance, I urge you to do the same: just ask yourself “how to keep my humanity alive and thriving in this world?” Just keeping it in your mind will, I hope, guide you gently. And sometimes you're not even aware of it while it guides you.

My background is not in writing. I did my undergrad in maths, physics, and computer science. I worked for a few years as a software engineer and database designer in Chicago USA, but there came a point when I wanted to do something more than make money for a corporation. So, I quit with the idea that I would do some work that had more direct societal impact. I did a bit of volunteer work while taking care of my babies for a few years.

Then one day, I read an autobiography of Mohammed Yunus, written with Alan Jolie, titled “Banker to the Poor”. Yunus was the father of Bangladesh’s Self-Help Group movement and the Grameen Bank. He pioneered microfinance, enabling people to get small loans and access savings and other financial services. This concept empowers the poor, especially women, and has transformed global approaches to poverty and development.

Reading that book, I was really moved and deeply inspired. I decided to study development economics. But there was a hitch. I had no background in economics beyond basic class 10. Fortunately, the Centre for Economic and Social Studies in Hyderabad had an MPhil program that required the candidate to pass a high-level exam in economics without the need for a formal degree in economics. I bought textbooks from high school to undergrad to master's level and taught myself. I passed the exam and was able to do my MPhil. My thesis was on financial literacy in rural populations. My fieldwork was in Angallu village in Chittoor district.

I would go from house to house with my questionnaire, asking people about their lives and families and their understanding of interest rates, inflation, awareness of government subsidies, and banking schemes.

People always welcomed me. They offered me tea to drink. If they were very poor, they offered water with a bit of jaggery. I would sit down with them on their chairs, on their mats, or on their floors, as they opened up about their lives, which were, as you can imagine, often quite difficult.

For them, finance meant the difference between being able to send their kids to school, go to the doctor, get their daughter married, and have enough to eat. Finance is also about choice, at least not having to make those terrible choices. For example, deciding whether to send your child for an operation, or admitting your mother to the hospital because you are already in debt and have money only for one person. It meant your daughter can attend college as well as your son.

When I started my field work, I was with an idealistic young woman who was training a group of people in a self-help group (also known as SHG). The trainer was a well-educated woman, while the people in the SHG were illiterate or barely literate women.

The trainer was puzzled. She asked the SHG leader why she didn’t go to the bank to make her regular payment into her account. “It costs almost nothing,” the trainer said. “Just the auto charge.”

The SHG leader explained, “But I’d have to take off from work. I lose my daily wages for that day.”

The trainer did not seem convinced, but the illiterate Self-Help Group leader understood opportunity cost better than the educated woman who was supposed to train her.

Of course, this is not to say that education does not impact financial literacy and usage. Of course, it does. But our idea that rural populations are ignorant of or are not interested in finance is wrong. Most people in rural areas have an instinctual understanding of finance as it relates to their unique circumstances.

This understanding is influenced by several things, one of which is social circles. If a person’s social circle is more knowledgeable and aware and uses financial services more, so does the individual in that circle. Therefore, finance is related to social and cultural aspects also. In fact, when women in rural Andhra Pradesh first got access to credit and savings with SHGs, there was a wave of divorces as women could leave abusive relationships.

Also, people in Angallu village had an understanding of interest rates different than the conventional. They had a concept of Dharmavaddi, which is the interest rate or “vaddi” that they feel is justified according to Dharma, or righteous law. And it is very high, about 20% per annum in the villages that I studied. People felt outraged by interest rates higher than the Dharmavaddi, whereas banks would consider 20% usurious.

The people in the survey understood that interest rates take into supply of capital and risk calculations. But they also understood interest rates as incentive mechanisms. So, the people that I surveyed considered interest rates as incentives to pay back the principal.

They would ask me, “If there's no interest, why should we ever pay back the principal?”

Higher interest rates are considered higher incentives to pay back.

“If someone charges more, we will pay them back first,” they would say.

The point of this is that I hope you will understand that finance is not just about equities and sophisticated derivatives. It’s not just the about questions and models you will read in textbooks. When you think of finance, I hope you will think of how other people understand it. And I hope you will think of it as not just Wall Street and Dalal Street, but of the people in the streets of Angallu or the streets of Bombay, whether these people are rich or poor.

I always loved reading and I wrote poetry and stories as a child. Everything I saw in Angallu made me decide to be a writer and explore more freely the truth that I witnessed.

Being a good writer means not just being able to express yourself well, it also means being able to see. To see what people are feeling and make it into a story. How did that shy boy fall in love? Why did that old woman laugh? It means to see societal changes and issues and distil them into the experiences of individuals and families. How does a servant girl feel when she can't go to college like the other girls in her house? How does a young child without legs feel when he can't go to class because there is no ramp in his school?

Writing also means being able to see the beauty of a flower at dawn or moonlight on waves.

Being a storyteller is a very useful skill, and you don't have to be a writer to be a storyteller. You need only to see, to feel, to empathize.

One way to keep your precious humanity shining is to be open to the infinite wonders in this world. Even in a drop of water, there is so much to see and learn. A mathematician may model the shape of the drop with differential equations. A scientist may look at surface tension or the chemical composition. A poet may marvel at the lights, and an artist may draw the beautiful colours reflected in it. A Zen master might observe that enlightenment is like the moon reflected in water, even in that one drop.

So, if that simple drop offers so many things to so many people, imagine the beauty and possibilities on this earth.

As you grow up and go into the world, I hope you will keep your heart open to the marvellous wonders within yourself, in your fellow human beings, and in the beautiful world we all live in.

I thank you very much, and of course, I wish you all the very best in your life and in your careers.