Maru-a-Pula School Form 4 Student Ga Ram Park is traveling to Chiang Mai, Thailand this week to represent Botswana at the 56th International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) from 7th -17th July 2015. The IMO is the World Championship Mathematics Competition for high school students and is held annually, in a different country each year. Beginning with just seven participating countries in 1959, it has gradually expanded to include over 100 countries from five continents. Botswana is taking part for the first time this year.
Ga Ram went through two rounds of testing prior to her selection, finishing first in the country out of a total of 102 candidates. The gifted mathematician will be accompanied by a team of five students from other high schools in Botswana including Moshupa SSS, Letlhakane SSS and Moeding College.
She will be competing against over 600 students from all over the world, in two days of competition comprising three questions a day tested over four and a half hours. She says : “I am excited about getting tough questions in a competitive environment.”
Ga Ram, who came to Botswana from Korea three years ago, first realized she had a flair for Mathematics at primary school, and used to enjoy solving the problems on a television Maths show with her family. She cites the ‘unsolvable’ Maths problems of 18th Century mathematician Leonhard Euler as being another important influence.
“When I find a really hard question, I say to myself, I HAVE to solve this,” she says.
~ Aaliyah Mussa / Alastair Hagger