Mohammed Alfan from Kozhikode has been on a mission to popularise the use of MS Excel. He has been conducting free workshops and webinars for over two years now. When the pandemic struck, he launched a campaign #excelaroundtheglobe, which brought him students from different parts of the world. He has already trained students and professionals from over 12 countries including Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda, Sudan and Nigeria in addition to students from the UK and the Gulf countries. He has trained over 3,000 students from African countries alone.
“The idea is to make Excel more accessible to people and demystify it,” says Mohammed.
Mohammed, who works in a private firm, spends a few hours every weekend holding these webinars for his global student community under his label, ‘Rows and Columns’.
Concepts simplified
He simplifies concepts in order to make learning easier. From a basic understanding to more advanced applications such as spreadsheets, lookup techniques, data consolidation and interactive dashboards, his classes are tailored for not just students, but individuals handling various professional roles as well.
Mohammed gives practical worksheets, which the students can solve with him during the sessions. He sends them the link of the recorded class as well, for reference. A Whatsapp community formed for the students help in clearing doubts.
“One can apply Excel in one’s day-to-day life. Managing data is something we all do every day. Be it planning your daily work schedule or drawing up your monthly expenses, Excel can help simplify and organise your life,” he says. From creating a sketch or solving a puzzle, or even building a game or software, anything can be done using Excel,” Mohammed adds.
He also conducts workshops for homemakers, who have begun to use Excel to draw up home budgets. He organises sessions for children and teaches them using colourful building blocks. “It is a great tool to help children pick up visual cues and understand the fundamentals of sorting data.”
Part of the curriculum
Mohammed wants the world to share in his passion for Excel. He believes it should be included in the school curriculum. “If we start training early, students can benefit from it. Schools and colleges should offer a course in Excel as knowledge of the tool will give students an edge in a competitive environment.”
His book, Data Analytics for Beginners — Skills to Succeed has been included in the curriculum of the Department of Business Administration, Madras Christian College, after the recent revision of the syllabus.
Mohammed has conducted workshops in Government schools and institutions before the pandemic broke out and he hopes to continue after the situation improves. He also wants to reach out to help tribal youth learn the basics of Excel.
Mohammed also has a YouTube channel.
