MEC’s OBMEP campaign spreads across the country

29/5/2025

The Capital of Mathematics has an address! Cocal dos Alves, a small town in the interior of Piauí, has stood out over the years in the OBMEP (Brazilian Public School Math Olympics) tests and its young people have won hundreds of medals. The success story is now gaining space on TV screens around Brazil in the Ministry of Education’s (MEC) new advertising campaign, which shows the transformative power of OBMEP. Watch the video here!

“The town here is very small, there are no luxuries. But there are a lot of boys who are good at math… there are! Yes, there are!”, says an excerpt from the video. Cocal dos Alves has just 6,386 inhabitants and has already won more than 300 medals.

Promoted by IMPA (Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics), every year OBMEP brings together more than 18.5 million students from the 6th year of elementary school to the 3rd year of secondary school. This year, the scientific competition celebrates two decades of encouraging education and discovering mathematical talent throughout Brazil. The 1st phase of the Olympiad takes place next Tuesday (3) and is applied in the educational institutions themselves – public and private schools.

“Here, practically all the students take part in OBMEP! The result of this equation? Many transformed lives!” says another excerpt from the video, featuring OBMEP medalists from Cocal dos Alves who have become math masters, doctors and engineers.

Vacancies for medal winners at IMPA Tech

IMPA Tech was also featured in the MEC campaign. The Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics for Innovation Technology, IMPA’s first undergraduate program, is a partnership between the institute and the Federal Government and the Rio de Janeiro City Hall. The degree reserves 80% of its places for medal winners from five knowledge Olympiads. In addition to the OBMEP, awards are accepted at specific levels of the OBM, OBFEP, OBQ and OBI. The rest of the places go to young people who performed well in the Enem (National High School Exam) math test.

The IMPA Tech campus is located in Porto Maravalley, Rio de Janeiro’s innovation hub, in the city’s port area. Students from all over Brazil take part in the selection process. Those selected for the bachelor’s degree receive air and land tickets for the start of the academic year, student accommodation and financial and food aid.

The four-year bachelor’s degree aims to train students to enter the technology and innovation market effectively. The degree has a one-year basic cycle and then students choose between four emphases: Mathematics, Physics, Data Science or Computer Science.

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