I went to this year’s IMO (no not as a contestant, I’m ineligible) on the Sunshine Coast. I have to lead with this image, which is the pattern of tiles on the floor at the Sunshine Coast airport.
The image contains a very mild spoiler to problem 6 on this year’s exam. The uncanny coincidence is too awesome to not mention it.
My role was on the problem selection committee, which means I was involved in selecting the shortlist, which involved getting to the Sunshine Coast much earlier than the contestants (never a bad thing to be next to a QLD beach in winter), getting a few days off, then recommencing academic work with jury meetings and coordintion.
Here’s a picture from nearby Mount Coolum, taken on a hike during the break period.
When initially approached, I was a little apprehensive about how my rustiness with olympiad mathematics would affect my opinions and capability to work on the shortlist, but I think things turned out fine. I would be willing to do this again if asked. Coordination felt very different to the shortlisting process, it involves a lot of work in a short time period, some of which can be stressful, but is of essential importance to making an IMO run smoothly. I think I enjoyed the whole process more because I was on the PSC beforehand, and would be less likely to accept to attend a future IMO in a coordination only role than I would as a PSC role.
Here is an awesome T-shirt. I want one.
The Australian Maths Trust took the opportunity to have an alumni reunion event on the final morning. They had this swag to give away, highlighted by copies of Australian Scenes (no longer published in dead tree form) dating back to 1992. I took the opportunity to complete my collection from the years in which I competed.
Unfortunately the publicity around this IMO in more mainstream media tended to focus on the unverifiable claims of the AI community rather than the feats of the students involved. Any organisation between the IMO and AI companies was a shambles, with nothing being organised in advance to force any integrity onto the AI companies, and inappropriate requests for coordinators to mark AI scripts, including after the closing ceremony with some in person approaches by individuals with laptops.
To end on a more positive note, here’s a reunion photo taken after the closing ceremony. All of us were at IMO 2001 and all of us were graduate students at MIT together.
