Texas Mathworks Team Wins Primary Math World Competition

The Texas Mathworks team emerged as one of the Overall Champions in the Po Leung Kuk 12th Primary Math World Contest held from July 11-16 in Hong Kong.  The team consisting of Alexandra Ilic of Austin, Enoch Tsai of Spring and Lilly Shen and Bobby Shen of Sugarland tied for the Overall Champions with teams from Hong Kong, Beijing-China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  This year’s competition drew 44 teams from Bulgaria, South Africa, Singapore, People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Macau, Mexico, and the United States.  The Mathworks team also won the Po Leung Kuk Cup, awarded to the top non-Asian team, for the 6th time.

The team was escorted to Hong Kong by team leaders Hiroko Warshauer, math faculty at Texas State University, and Susan Brown, principal at Miller Junior High School in San Marcos.  The students attended the two-week Texas Mathworks Junior Summer Math Camp and were coached by Jian Shen, math faculty at Texas State University and former International Math Olympiad participant, and Sam Baethge, head of the Texas American Regional Mathematics League (ARML).  

Po Leung Kuk, a renowned Hong Kong welfare and school-sponsoring organization that seeks to foster friendly relations among elementary and middle- school students from different countries, sponsors the competition.

The Kodosky Foundation and other donors help underwrite the Texas Mathworks Junior Summer Math Camp training program, ensuring that all students can participate regardless of their financial background.  Texas Mathworks is a center for mathematics education at Texas State University that develops model programs and self-sustaining learning communities that engage Texas K-12 students from all backgrounds in doing mathematics at a high level.  For more information about this and other Mathworks programs see the web at www.txstate.edu/mathworks, or call 512-245-3439.