By Sarah Brown, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Over the days of July 16th to 18th in Luanda, Angola, participants of the Mathematics Olympics from the CPLP (Community of Countries of the Portuguese Language) were challenged with various math problems, concluding with Brazil taking home one gold medal and three silver medals.
The CPLP is made up of Portuguese speaking countries, and this year’s competitors consisted of Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cabo Verde, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe, with each country having four representative students participating up to the age of eighteen years old.
The gold medal went to André Yuji Hisatsuga from São Paulo, having completing the tasks with the most accuracy and impressing the judges with his mathematical talent. Portugal also took home a gold, while the other countries went home with silver and bronze.
The three silver medals for Brazil went to João Guilherme Madeira Araújo from Fortaleza, Daniel Quintão de Moraes from Rio de Janeiro, and Guilherme Goulart Kowalczuk from Porto Alegre. Pinda Simão, Minister of Education of Angola described the competition “as a moment of discovery of talents from the countries in the [CPLP]”. He added, “In these Olympics, students were tested on their knowledge and their level of mental development, not forgetting their age and maturity…”.
Created in 2011, The Mathematics Olympics of CPLP bears the slogan “With Knowledge of Math We Learn About the Globalized World”. The competition’s purpose is to strengthen and stimulate the study of math, contribute to the scientific development within the mathematics community, identify talented young students and encourage an exchange of experiences between the young participants.
Former co-coordinator of the 2012 Mathematics Olympics, Luzinalva Miranda de Amorim explained how this competition helps the education in Brazil. “The realization of the Olympics is an important event, not only for the community of teachers and Brazilian mathematicians, but also for our basic and secondary school teachings.”
Over the course of three days, the participants were expected to solve various mathematical problems in the area of algebra, geometry, combinatorial and the theory of numbers. In individual tests, each competitor would have to tackle three problems under the eyes of a panel of judges that were selected by the international jury made up by representatives of each of the participating countries.
Brazil’s participation in the event is organized by Olimpíada Brasileira de Matemática (Brazilian Olympics of Mathematics), a joint initiative from the Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura Aplicada (The National Instiute of Applied Pure Mathematics) and the Sociedade Brasileira de Matemática (The Brazilian Society of Mathematics).
Next year, the event will take place in Cape Verde. The last Olympics was in 2013 in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, where Brazil won a total of four medals, with two gold, one silver and one bronze. This kept Brazil in first place in the competition for the third consecutive year.