M'luru lad to compete in international math olympiad

Aditya Prakash, a Class 11 student from Mangaluru, has been selected for the 58th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) to be held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, in July.

He is among six students from India who will take part in the coveted mathematics championship held every June/July. He made it to the IMO after clearing the Indian National Mathematical Olympiad (INMO) in which 300 students from all over the country had taken part.

Aditya is the first student from Karnataka in the last 21 years to compete in the two-day IMO where participants have to solve mathematical problems in four-and-a-half hours, said Severene Rosario, Institution Programme Coordinator at Centre for Advanced Learning (CFAL), where Aditya was trained.

The international olympiad is conducted in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Astronomy and Junior Science. Selection is through a three-tier process consisting of regional, state and national levels. Aditya’s qualification to the IMO has earned him a place in the prestigious Chennai Mathematical Institute.

Aditya, who is studying at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Panambur, started preparing for the olympiad when he was in Class 8 and was mentored by Prof P N Subrahmanya and Dr Srikanth Pai. He was so passionate about mathematics that he used to solve maths problems round the clock. Seeing the spark in him, his parents — Om Prakash Barnval, Chief Manager, Official Language Division, at Corporation Bank’s head office in Mangaluru, and Pratima — decided to provide him proper training. The family hails from Jharkhand.