CMU-Q announces winners of Pi Day Math Contest 2020

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, a Qatar Foundation partner university, has announced the four winning teams in this year’s Pi Day Mathematics Competition. The American School of Doha and Doha British School each had one winning team, while DPS Modern Indian School earned two spots in the top four.

The preliminary round of the fifth annual math contest for high school students was held in February, with 126 teams from around Doha participating. During the round, teams completed a set of complex problems that were later scored. The final round was scheduled for March 14 (3/14), which is affectionately known as Pi Day in math circles.

“We were very pleased to see how well students performed this year, especially the top four teams,” said Zelealem Yilma, assistant professor of mathematics at CMU-Q. He and fellow co-organizer Hasan Demirkoparan were preparing for an intense final round, but the event was cancelled when schools and universities were suspended to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“We congratulate all of the teams for a job well done,” said Demirkoparan. “We started this competition in 2016 to encourage high school students around Qatar to have fun with mathematics, and this was our largest enrollment so far.”

Pi represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, an irrational number rounded to 3.14. Pi Day is embraced by mathematicians and educators worldwide as an opportunity to celebrate and encourage learning in mathematics.

Zelealem Yilma at the preliminary round of Pi Day 2020, held in February.

Winners of Pi Day Mathematics Competition 2020 (alphabetical by school)

American School of Doha

Mentors: Engy Carniglia, Fernando Perez

Team: Andrew Awada, Ishwar Karthik, Aditya Kumaran, Mayank Kumaran

Doha British School

Mentors: Shorena Oganesyan, Elizabeth Winstanley

Team: Yousef Ibrahim, Juanita Antony Joseph, Aaryaman Sharma, Zaid Takriti

DPS Modern Indian School

Mentor: Umasankar Sambara

Team 1: Ethan Ignatius D’Sa, Swapnil Garg, Suchitra Senthil, Sreedev Sreekumar

Team 2: Nihit Agarwal, Nihal Anwar, Umang Sanjeev Gupta, Akhil Lakshmanan