PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Several hundred Pakistani university students sitenraptured as Hammad Safi lectures them on the merits of bettering theirdiction by watching Barack Obama speeches on YouTube.

The elegantly dressed motivational speaker is something of an internetsensation in Pakistan and regularly draws large crowds.

But it’s not just because of his infectious enthusiasm and engaging smile.It’s also because he’s only 11 years old.

Safi speaks into his wireless microphone, his hand gestures practised andhis confidence unwavering before the attention of his elders at theUniversity of Spoken English (USECS) in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The pint-sized motivational coach is already an online star with his ownYouTube channel and 145,000 subscribers. Some videos have been viewedmillions of times.

Some of his advice may sound hackneyed: “every second is a challenge,” hesays in one video. “Failure is the basis of success.”

But his audiences don’t seem to mind.

Bilal Khan, a political science student twice Safi’s age who came to listento his speech, said the boy wonder had had a profound effect on him.

“A few months ago I was really disappointed with life… I was (thinking)about suicide, because there are no jobs and no success in life,” he toldAFP.

“Then I saw a movie of Hammad Safi. I thought, if an 11-year-old child cando anything, why can’t I?”

Online comments also shower him with praise.

“People love him because he’s just talking, he’s a hit every time,” saysSamiullah Waqil, one of his former English teachers.

Safi’s youth and precociousness seem to form part of the enchantment.

But he is also seen as presenting a positive image of Pakistan, one thatresonates powerfully with his listeners.

Discussing Allama Iqbal, a renowned poet widely regarded as having inspiredthe movement to create Pakistan, Safi says: “If he had not been there, I oranyone else would surely be cleaning the toilet in the house of anEnglishman.” ‘I inspire the universe’

At USECS, the faculty see him as a “nanha professor”, or little teacher; aprotege who could go on to great things one day – though what, exactly,they are looking for from him remains undefined.

Safi was studying at a traditional school but also taking English classesat USECS, where he was quickly noticed for his “phenomenalself-confidence”, says director Ammer Sohail.

Shortly afterwards, he left his school to be full-time at USECS, continuinghis English studies and embarking on his motivational career.

The university, made up largely of working-class students, now has Safioffer motivational lectures each week, in addition to his growing internetfanbase.

His “job”, says Sohail, is to encourage the poorer students, “to give themhope, so that they break their glass ceiling” in a country with glaringeducation inequality, where more than 40 percent of the population isilliterate, according to UN data.

“We want it to spread this education awareness to the whole country,” hesays emphatically.

Safi’s father, a wealthy 48-year-old businessman from Peshawar named AbdulRehman Khan, agrees.

“He is not on ordinary child,” he explains. “People have seen something inhim. I have myself seen abilities in him. That’s why I have appointedspecial teachers for him. I want him to become a special leader.

“I’m very proud… For his abilities, for his intelligence, he isGod-gifted.”

Safi repeats the sentiment, though sometimes he gives the impression ofdoing so by rote.

“I am an inspiration, not only for Pakistan, but for the world. I inspirethe entire universe,” he tells AFP, without blinking. ‘Fake heroes’

He sometimes studies “10 to 12 hours in a row,” according to his professors.

In his simple room, photos showing him in the company of the Chineseambassador in Islamabad and the politician Imran Khan hang over his bed.

Posters of cartoon heroes or sportsmen are absent, toys are few. “Batmanand Superman are fake heroes, but those are true,” he says, pointing to theportraits of Allama Iqbal, Bill Gates and Albert Einstein adorning hiswalls.

“Where’s the child in him? He’s gone, because he thinks above his age,”worries Bakht Zaman, a professor at Peshawar University, who attended alecture later shared widely on YouTube.

“This talented child is a good motivational coach” but “he lacksintellectual depth,” he notes. “He can become what they want to do withhim, but it will take time.”

Hassan Amir Shah, the vice chancellor of the public university of Lahore,where Safi has also lectured, hopes for his part that all the attention”will not drive him crazy”.

“He still has a long way to go, many books to read,” he tells AFP. “We willonly be able to judge him in 20 years, when he is an adult.”