The gold medals were earned by Farras Mohammad hibban Faddila (Informatics 2018) and Muhammad Afifurahman (Mathematic 2016), while silver medals were earned by Adrian Ramanda (Chemical Engineering 2018) and Rubio Gunawan (Mathematic 2017). The bronze medal was received by Muhammad Rizki Fadillah (Mathematics 2015).

Those five students of Institut Teknologi Bandung were the recipients of National Mathematic and Natural Sciences Olympiad (ON-MIPA) 2019 held by Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti). Twenty medal recipients from various universities in Indonesia went through selection on 13-16 June 2019. From the result, six students will represent Indonesia in IMC 2019 with five students coming from ITB.

During the competition, participants were asked to solve ten problems in mathematics within two days. In each day, participants were given 5 questions to solve within 5 hours. The jury will immediately check the answer and announce that day’s ranking.

On the first day, Farras from Indonesia successfully earned the fifth position out of hundreds of participants from all over the world. Despite reduced position on the second day, Farras still won the gold medal. “Just enjoy the test, because if we enjoy it then it will go smoothly. Previously I also prepare the material first,” said Farras.

Indonesia Team collectively sit on the 16th place of 77 teams that participate in IMC 2019. Farras said that IMC is not a mere mathematic competition, but also a platform for students from all over the world to meet.

Besides mathematic competition, IMC 2019 also saw other activities such as football games and discussion that got the participants to know each other. On the competition, the majority of the participants came from Europe such as Greece, Switzerland, Czech, Israel, and Russia. “Team from Israel and Russia were the toughest in IMC 2019,” Farras said. He encourages his fellow students to study consistently and never be shy to ask experts.

Besides Farras, Muhammad Afifurahman who also won gold medal have a good impression toward the competition. Besides getting to participate in prestigious competition, he also got to learn about cultures of other countries and learn new languages. “It’s fun. My first time traveling to Europe and represented Indonesia. It is awesome to learn about cultures in foreign country and to listen to other languages every day,” said Afif.

Reporter: Deo Fernando (Entrepreneurship 2018)