ITB's First Year Student Wins World Class Mathematics Competition

Oleh Yasmin Aruni

Editor -

August 07, 2015

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - ITB was once again made proud by one of its student, Muhamad Al-Kahfi in the 22nd International Mathematics Competition for University Students in Bulgary (27/07-02/08/15). It is an international mathematics competition addressed for undergraduate students from all over the world. In this prestigious event, a student who had just finished taking his first year at ITB (preparatory year) managed to occupy the position of first prize (gold medal) from 326 participants who participated in the event from different countries.

Process Towards Victory

To be able to represent Indonesia in this prestigious event, Kahfi must pass through a selection process at the Bandung Institute of Technology and then get the training and equipping of advancing in the Olympics of Mathematics and Natural Sciences High Education 2015 (ONMIPA-PT) held by the Directorate General of Higher Education. Surprisingly, this student that was born in Padang Panjang, July 27, 1996 is able to surpass the seniors to get a gold medal in ONMIPA-PT even crowned as the absolute winner. From winners ONMIPA-PT, nine people are selected to represent Indonesia in the International Mathematics Competition for University Student. One of them is Kahfi, who is currently studying in Mathematics Undergraduate Program.

In answering the questions in International Mathematics Competition for University Student housed at the American University in Bulgaria (UBG) is divided into two days, with five questions to be done within five hours each day, with a total of ten questions. According to him, the questions level of difficulty varies fromo easy, medium and difficult but with all the training and effort that he has went through, Kahfi managed to take home the title of the winner and to put Indonesia in the eyes of the world. The key in learning until he succeeded is by learning concepts carefully to understand thoroughly, followed by answering the questions from easy to difficult levels. The tough competitorsare the ones from Israel and Russia because on average they were able to work on the problems with difficult levels. In addition to gaining experience and achievements in this arena, Kahfi said he was happy to follow the competition abroad so that they can meet with people from various parts of the world.

Dedication for Parents and State

One of Kahfi's strongest motivation to continue to excel is to make his parents proud and happy. Then Kahf also tried with his best performance in this event to put Indonesia in the eyes of the world because his country has given the best start of the training and equipping, funding, and facilities so Kahfi wanted to reply with a notch of achievement for the country.

His love of mathematics is one of the reason why he wants to be the Governor of Bank Indonesia (BI) or to become a mathematician (pure mathematic). After this victory, in the future Kahfi wants to follow the event Mathematics Contest in Modeling (MCM) and hopes to make history again in this prestigious event. "Nothing is impossible for us if we try and have faith in God," said Kahfi.