Our Story on Nurturing Champions
We believe every school kid has innate talents, waiting to be nurtured and nourished within the right environment, by the right people. Bringing their talents out requires a lot of effort and planning from different agencies, including the students, parents, and teachers. One of the biggest events in the world that celebrates gifted kids from all nations is the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), which first started in Romania in 1959. Malaysia has been actively participating in the IMO, every year, since 1995. Do you know that a country can send a maximum of only six students to the IMO? This means each country only chooses the most talented among the best students that they have.
Discovering and promoting young talents to the IMO requires a structured, effective, and proven talent developmental program. The selections are done at least five times, with the first selection through an open competition called the International Mathematical Olympiad National Selection Test (IMONST), held in September of every year. After that, around 300 students will be selected to be in the next round called IMONST2, where the format of the paper mirrors that of IMO, to start familiarizing students with the spirit of IMO.
After IMONST2, a pool of 100 students will be invited to the selection camp, called Bengkel International Mathematical Olympiad (BIMO), where the real training begins. Here, students will be exposed to myriad mathematical knowledge, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking skills that will help them prepare for the IMO. Alumni of the Malaysian IMO team contribute to the training, passing down the knowledge and techniques to the next generation of potential IMO candidates.
After months of training and selections, the six Malaysian IMO representatives will be announced around May. They continue their training and discussion until the day they will sit for the IMO in July.
The 64th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO 2023) was held in Chiba, Japan, from July 2nd to July 13th. The students sat for the IMO paper only for two days, but the preparations took the whole year, and for some students, it took more than 3 years worth of training. Their results are the culmination of their years of efforts, taking every advantage and benefit that they can get from our programs. Here are the results of the IMO 2023:
Here are the current updates of the Malaysian IMO 2023 team:
Goh Wei Jie has continued his studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore since last August.
Wong Jer Ren recently just got accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston and he will be pursuing his study there soon.
Tan Min Heng just received an offer letter from the University of Cambridge but is still waiting for other offer letters before deciding.
Loh Kwong Weng received offers from Imperial College London and the University of Warwick, England. He is still keeping an eye out for offers from the United States universities.
Leia Mayssa and Chuah Jia Herng are currently taking their SPM papers, and we wish them the best!
One might wonder, how do they start their journey to greatness in the Mathematical Olympiad? How to be part of the Mathematical Olympiad community in Malaysia? Where can you meet all these talented friends and trainers who share the same goal as you? How to enrich your kids with mathematical knowledge and skills beyond the classroom?
The first step towards greatness comes from competing in IMONST 2024. The competition will be held on 21-22 September 2024, which means that you will have a lot of time to prepare for it. Workshops and seminars will be held from time to time to give chances for first-timers and beginners to be better equipped for their first foray into the world of the talented and gifted.
If the word Olympiad is too daunting for you, then do not fret! Another mathematical competition, the Kangaroo Math Competition, is here to help you. This competition is the largest math competition in the world, with 96 participating countries and a total of 4 million participants in 2023! The questions are designed for students to have their hands at fun and engaging mathematical problems, and the papers only include multiple-choice problems. The spirit of the Kangaroo Math Competition is the same as the Mathematical Olympiad, being competitive and challenging, but the problems are much more accessible to many students of different backgrounds.
Links to the competitions are provided below. If you have further inquiries regarding our programs, feel free to fill in the form given below to get in touch with our team soon.
International Mathematical Olympiad National Selection Test (IMONST)
