)---------------------------------------------
Dear All,
Greetings from Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad!
This is our great pleasure to invite you all to join us in the DBBL-Prothom Alo National Mathematical Festival 2011 to be held on 11-12th february 2011. The venue of the programme is the St. Joseph higher secondary school, Asad Avenue, Mohammadopur, Dhaka. For the first time, the whole BdMO program will be webcast live from the venue. So You can join us from your desk! To enjoy the event please login at http://www.prothom-alo.com.
Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad (BdMO) is both a nationwide process of selecting the national team members for IMO and an activity for popularizing mathematics among the school students. Under the leadership of the Committee and the support of two sponsors -- a national newspaper and a commercial bank, thousands of volunteers work hard to make this event successful.
A Little Bit of History:
This year we are going to organize the 9th BdMO. However, the mathematical Olympiad in Bangladesh had started its journey in 2001, when two eminent educationalists -- Professor M Zafar Iqbal and Professor Mohammad Kaikobad visited the editor of the Daily Prothom Alo, the highest-circulating newspaper of the country. Mr. Motiur rahman, the editor, without any hesitation agreed with the professors to their proposal of organizing a “newspaper based” mathematical Olympiad. On 17 June 2001, the Neurone Onuronon (Pulses in the Neuron) started. In each week 5 mathematical problems were published in “Bigyan projonmo”, the weekly science supplement of Prothom Alo, inviting students from home and abroad to send their solutions to Prothom Alo office. Then a team of volunteers would check the answers and keep the database. In 2002, the first mini Olympiad was organized followed by two math festivals in Narayanganj and Rajbari, two district towns of the country. In 2003, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology organized the first ever full-scale math Olympiad in the country. Later in April 2003, to make this event a regular one and to spread the messages to everyone, Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Committee had been formed. Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, an eminent educationalist and then the vice-chancellor of BRAC University took the leadership of the movement. Professor Jamal Nazrul Islam, Professor Munibur Rahman Chowdhury, Professor M Zafar iqbal, Prof. M Kaikobad, Professor Subrata Mukherjee, Mr Motiur Rahman, Mr Abdul Quaiyum were among the other members of the committee. Mr. Munir Hasan was designated with the role of General Secretary.
In the year 2004, a leading private commercial bank, Dutch Bangla Bank ltd became the sponsor of the programme. Prothom Alo agreed to support the festival with its logistics and media support. Therefore, the programme was renamed as DutchBangla Bank- Prothom Alo Mathematical Festival, which includes the Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad (BdMO).
Since then, the festival has been organized every year.
The 9th BdMO :
During the months of December 2010 and January 2011, 13 regional festivals were held . A total of around 18,000 students participated in 4 categories, namely -- Primary (Class III-V), Junior (VI-VIII), Secondary (IX-X) and Higher secondary (XI-XII) respectively. A total of 825 students qualified for the national Olympiad and will join the festival on 11-12th February in Dhaka.
To support the students in their preparation several workshops, training camps were organized in different parts of the country. The Mathematical Olympiad Committee also run a forum for the students. An official blog has been developed to share their joy, experience etc with others.
This year, the festival, marking its 10 year celebration, has already brought attention from all the corners of the country. The two days long festival will be live web-cast by Computer Jagat (http://www.comjagat.com) and the live streaming will be available at Prothom Alo website (http://www.prothom-alo.com) as well as math Olympiad's website.
Besides, the abc Radio and Radio Bijoy will broadcast live commentary from the festival ground.
The joy of participants, volunteers are visible in the cyber world at this moment. Most of the participants, volunteers and associates had changed their profile picture to the Logo of math Olympiad Festival. a glimpses of this could be viewed in the Facebook event page!
This year there will be 71 winners plus 4 champions (Special Award) and 4 Champions of the champions' (Absolute winners of 4 categories) . Every winner will receive a medal/crest, Special Gift from Prothom Alo, and Certificate of achievement. Besides, the champions and the champion of the champions will receive prize-bond of worth 10,000 taka each. There will be some surprises for the winners as well.
Among the participants, 32 will be selected for the 7th Bangladesh math camp. This camp and the subsequent extension camp will find the members of the Bangladesh Mathematical Team who will participate in the upcoming International Mathematical Olympiad to be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands in July 2011.
May your second derivative be negative!
Kind Regards
Munir Hasan
General Secretary
Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Committee
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Web-http://www.matholympiad.org.bd