Akash Patel, originally from India, began his teaching career in very small rural communities in Oklahoma where people had never seen or met “a brown Indian guy who spoke five languages and had traveled to over 50 countries. He used his travel experiences to design all of his lessons. For example, he used his experiences of working with elephants in South Asia to teach children to make elephant poopoopaper and map elephant DNA to study poaching patterns. He currently teaches ESL with Oklahoma City Community College and serves as Epic Charter Schools’ Math+ Instructor and ELL Liaison. Patel previously taught Spanish with the Dallas Independent School District and fourth grade at Hayes elementary school in Oklahoma City. In both schools, his students have come from very difficult backgrounds and have included gang members, drug addicts and juvenile delinquents. The majority of his students at both schools had never traveled outside the US.

Patels has received many recognitions and awards including 2015 Oklahoma State Department of Education and Multicultural Institute Multicultural Teacher of the Year, and In December 2017, Patel was selected from over 30,000 nominations as one of the top 50 teachers around the world and shortlisted as a finalist for the Varkey Foundation’s Global Teacher Prize.

In January 2021, Patel was inducted in the International Literacy Association’s 30 Under 30 List. In January 2022, Patel was elected as the first-ever immigrant President of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). In June 2022, Patel was elected Vice-Chairman of the National Council of the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) Patel was also featured as a 2022 TIME Magazine Innovative Educator of the Year…the list goes on.

Akash also connects classrooms with people and professionals worldwide using virtual platforms in what I would call a modern day pen pal program. Patel has mobilized over 1,000 volunteers from over 150 countries to join his Global Connect database at the Happy World Foundation, a Texas based global education nonprofit he founded after the passing of his twin brother Anand Happy Patel.

Patel frequently speaks at regional, national and international conferences about his classroom experience. He has also trained over 100,000 teachers to use the Global Connect database and other multicultural programs. Today, thousands of American children travel to countries worldwide through Happy World Foundation’s global education programs. To Learn more, visit happyworldfoundation.us.