Abstract:

In April 2015, the 15th anniversary of the Puerto Rico Mathematical Olympiad was celebrated in Puerto Rico. During the celebrations, María Falk de Losada, one of the precursors of the mathematical Olympiads in Ibero-America, made an important statement: “It is a civil right of talented mathematics students that the government and the different public and private entities harvest, develop and cultivate their talent.” With this idea in mind, the Puerto Rico Mathematical Olympiads created the Mathematics Competition by Teams (COMATEQ) developed through universities that organize pre-university mathematics Olympiads. The competition has already been held for seven consecutive years with the participation of countries from Central America, South America and the Caribbean. This activity has allowed dozens of students, many of them from rural areas, to participate in an international mathematics competition. The Olympiad is for students under sixteen years of age and is held simultaneously in each country on the first Saturday in March. The Olympiad exercises are on the classic mathematical Olympiad topics that include algebra, geometry, number theory, combinatorics and general logic exercises. The students with the best scores from each enrolled university receive awards and the best students globally are also awarded. On the other hand, this initiative has led to multiple collaborations between professors who participate with their students, including the development of publications and works in the area of mathematics problem solving and mathematics education. In this talk we present details and achievements of this competition.

Keywords:

Mathematics competition, Teams.