Carioca Math Olympiad medalists visit IMPA Tech

25/09/2024

On Wednesday (25), IMPA Tech received a visit from five winners of the Carioca Mathematical Olympiad (OCM). Accompanied by their parents and guardians, students from the municipal education system visited the facilities of the bachelor’s degree in Mathematics Technology and Innovation at Porto Maravalley, in Rio’s port area, and found out that they are the new gold medalists in the competition.

The idea of the meeting was to show the students that IMPA Tech is an affordable undergraduate program in the city, but the visit hid a surprise: a trip to the Disney theme parks and the Kennedy Space Center, a NASA (US National Aeronautics and Space Administration) park in Orlando, USA.

Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Secretary of Education, Renan Ferreirinha, took part in the visit and announced the news to the students, who are among the 100 awarded by the municipal education network this year.

“If you seize educational opportunities, I’m sure you’ll have a very good future. We need to show our network, our country, that investing in education is worthwhile. And for that, we need good examples. Who’s up for a trip to Disney?” said the secretary, who considers himself a “child of OBMEP”.

Ferreirinha has won six medals in the OBMEP (Brazilian Public School Math Olympics), which has been run by IMPA since 2005. The Carioca Olympiad was even created on the basis of OBMEP and has IMPA’s partnership, as Carlos Eduardo Jascone, head of strategic projects at the Municipal Department of Education (SME), pointed out. “It was the OBMEP that encouraged our secretary, Renan Ferreirinha, to create the OCM.”

Erika Sholl, OBMEP coordinator, also addressed the winners. “This is the start of your journey. OBMEP and OCM open many doors. Seize the opportunities and show everyone that you can do it. I want to meet you at award ceremonies around Brazil,” he said.

Excited by the news, student Luiza Victtoria, 13, from Engenheiro João Thomé Municipal School, shared her reaction to the award. “The trip was a surprise! I’m very excited. The people at school are happy for me and are already wanting souvenirs from Disney,” she joked.

Luiza is also an OBMEP medalist and believes that the competition has had a positive influence on her education. “In the 7th grade, I passed to the 2nd phase of OBMEP and decided to go deeper and study more. I won my first medal, a state bronze.”

During her visit to IMPA Tech, the student showed that she could be a future graduate student at IMPA. “I’d never been here before, but I already followed the undergraduate program on social media and knew about the benefits students receive. I still don’t know what I want to study, but math is a possibility,” she concluded.

Roberta Dolem, a teacher at the Benjamin Franklin Municipal School, is the mother of one of the children who won an award and was thrilled with the news. “I’m very excited. My daughter came home saying that the test was very difficult and I told her that the important thing was to take part and have the experience. The trip was a great surprise.” An admirer of OBMEP, Roberta fell in love with IMPA Tech. “I didn’t know the institute. I’m delighted with this place and all the structure it has,” she concluded.

From different schools in the city, those selected for the visit are among the 400,000 children from Rio de Janeiro who took part in the CMO in 2024. This year, the science competition has a new feature: the 3rd phase, with discursive questions, which is the final filter for the prize. Among the participants, 50 boys and 50 girls will win the trip. The full list of prizewinners will be released shortly by SME.

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