JEDDAH: For the first time Saudi Arabia is putting forward a team to take part in the Cyberspace Mathematical Competition (2020 CMC). It will be represented by the King Abdul Aziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba).
Sixty-nine teams from various countries are competing remotely in the two-day competition that kicked off on Monday.
Mawhiba, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, qualified a team of students to take part in 2020 CMC. The team members are Hamza Al-Sheikhi, Marwan Khayat and Thanaa Al-Haidari, Mohammed Al-Dubaisi and Nawaf Al-Ghamdi, Jude Bahwaini, Khaled Al-Ajran and Mohammed Al-Shehri.
The Saudi team underwent intensive training – 3,000 hours over four years – by experts and specialists to develop their skills
Each country will have a team of no more than eight people above the age of 19. Teams with six people must have at least one female member, and teams with eight people must have at least two female members.
The competition consists of eight essay-proof problems, in mathematics, algebra, combinatorics, engineering and number theory, held over two days. There will be four problems per day arranged in roughly increasing order of difficulty, with a 5-hour time limit.
CMC is a high-level international competition for high-school students, providing a rich opportunity for young math students in the world to deal with difficult and interesting issues.
All major countries are keen to participate due to the difficulty of the questions in this competition, which is close to the difficulty of the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO). It is also considered one of the qualifying stations for the International Olympics.
Saudi teams will also be taking part remotely in the European Physics Olympiad and the International Chemistry Olympiad in the coming two weeks.
Mawhiba was keen to qualify the participating teams through its International Olympiads program to enable them to compete with students of the world during such international competitions.