Daniyaal Anawar

Daniyaal Anawar is an education content creator and Economics student at St John's College, University of Cambridge, known for the revision and exam-advice platform GCSEPotential and for his TikTok and YouTube channels, both @daniyaalanawar. He also runs free mentoring, access events and school talks for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

GCSEPotential

Anawar is from Hertfordshire. He has said he started GCSEPotential after his Year 10 mock exams, when the study methods he had researched worked for him but not for his friends, and he posted its first video in May 2021. His early videos received more than 2 million views, and he went on to post GCSE and A-level revision methods, exam advice and livestreamed GCSE "crash courses". The GCSEPotential TikTok account and YouTube channel later took his own name. He also set up The Potential Project, free academic mentoring for Year 11 students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and according to the government's award citation he was a Student Advisor for the exam board AQA and helped write a free GCSE Chemistry textbook.

In August 2023, on GCSE results day, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave him a Points of Light award, which recognises outstanding volunteers, for GCSEPotential and The Potential Project. His local MP, Grant Shapps, also congratulated him.

Education

Anawar sat his A levels in 2024 and, after a gap year, went on to study Economics at St John's College, Cambridge. He is an Avicenna Scholar, a scholarship he says covers his tuition in full.

Work

Content. In October 2026 his TikTok account had about 105,000 followers and 3.4 million likes, and his YouTube channel about 7,200 subscribers; he says his content has reached more than 60 million people. His TikTok bio now lists society, culture and history as its subjects. On his website he publishes free guides on A levels, university applications, Oxbridge interviews and finance spring weeks, and he sells Anki flashcard decks for A-level Maths, Further Maths, Economics, History and Politics through Gumroad, free to students on free school meals.

Mentoring and events. Each year he mentors a small group of students who receive free school meals or have faced serious disadvantage through the Cambridge Economics application, at no charge; he reports that eight of the ten students he mentored in one cycle were offered places. He says he founded a social mobility organisation, The Steps Foundation, which he has since left. Under its banner he co-founded and co-hosted Starting Point, a day for Year 12 and 13 students held at Euston in central London in September 2025 for more than 170 students, which he describes as London's largest pre-university event. He also ran an Oxbridge interview workshop in November 2025 and co-organised Oxbridge for Muslims, an access event for 90 students, in August 2026. He gives talks at schools, free to state schools, and at companies and community events.

Other projects. Through a project he calls Effective Comms, he offers free communications advice to AI safety and effective-altruism-adjacent organisations; his published case studies include an applications campaign for the youth programme Leaf and the promotion of the St John's College May Ball. He has also built OpenMarketMake, a browser game for practising market making on historical trading days.