Filipino Students Bag Medals in Math Olympiad in Greece
PINOY WIZ KIDS flexed their brain muscles and did their families and the country proud at an international math Olympiad held in Greece, according to the Mathematics Trainers Guild-Philippines (MTG), an organization of math experts that helps train and prepare Filipino students for international math competitions.
Daryll Carlsten Ko of St. Stephen’s High School, Sean Eugene Chua of Xavier School, and Deanne Gabrielle Algenio of Makati Science High School represented the Philippines at the 22nd Junior Balkan Mathematical Olympiad (JBMO) in Rhodes, Greece.
Ko and Chua both won silver medals, while Algenio bagged a bronze medal.
The competition was held from June 19 to 24 and included participants from countries such as Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Republic of Moldova, Kazakhstan, Montenegro, Philippines, Romania, Serbia,Turkey and Turkmenistan.
The Filipino team was led by team leader Kerish Villegas.
“We congratulate our three contestants for winning medals in the math competition. This is another honor for our country,” said Dr. Isidro Aguilar, MTG president.
The questions in this year’s contest were challenging, according to the students.
“This year’s JBMO was a mixture of handleable and challenging problems. Some of them only required a direct flow of logic while the others needed very specific observations in order to advance in the problem,” said Ko. “It was not easy to think of ideas that could help us make progress in solving each problem.”
“Challenging, brain provoking, mind boggling problems, but nothing we Pinoy mathletes cannot hurdle,” said Algenio.
Chua also added that “although the problems seemed straightforward, they were designed in such a way that we were challenged to really think out of the box while being pushed to the limit.”
via Philippine Information Agency / Mathematics Trainers Guild-Philippines
