On November 7th, the National Awarding Ceremony of the 11th Brazilian Public School Math Olympics (OBMEP) was carried out. About 6.5 million Middle and High School students from public schools around the country received gold, silver and bronze medals due to their performance in OBMEP in 2015. The event took place in the Windsor Barra Hotel’s Convention Center, in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), and had the participation of Instituto TIM, OBMEP’s partner since 2014.
The Ministry of Education, José Mendonça Bezerra Filho, the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications, Gilberto Kassab, and the State Secretary of Education of Rio de Janeiro, Wagner Victer, attended the award. The president of Instituto TIM, Manoel Horacio, was there to honor the ceremony and to know the nine medallists of 2015 gifted by Instituto TIM-OBMEP Scholarships, which offer financial support to OBMEP medallists entering in Higher Education in public universities.
During the event, OBMEP general coordinator and associate director of the National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Cláudio Landim, made the official announcement that 50 more Instituto TIM-OBMEP Scholarships will be available in 2017 and invited the medallists to apply. Currently, 100 medallists receive monthly scholarships in the amount of R$ 1,200.
Carla Mariana da Silva Pinheiro, from Minas Gerais, is one of the scholars who attended OBMEP 2015 awarding ceremony. She was six times OBMEP medallist and is now a Physics student at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), around 300 kilometers from her hometown, Carmo do Parnaíba (MG). “The scholarship is what allows to keep myself here. If I had to work, I wouldn’t have time to develop projects and to dedicate myself to studies”, she says.
Nicolas Castro Oliveira da Silva, from Osasco (SP), can help to cover the family expenses with Instituto TIM-OBMEP Scholarships, in addition to afford food and other everyday expenses. “This scholarship is very important to encourage students to keep studying”, he states. He was a gold medallist in OBMEP in 2015 and a silver one in 2012, and currently studies Civil Engineering in the University of São Paulo (USP).
The other scholars who received medals in OBMEP 2015 awarding ceremony were Amanda Thais dos Reis Fernandes, from Santana (SP); Ana Lídia Martins Rodrigues, from Presidente Olegário (MG); Iago Soares Borges Santos, from Ouro Verde de Goiás (GO); Janaina de Santana Santos, from Feira de Santana (BA); José Marcio Machado de Brito, from Cocal dos Alves (PI); Leonardo Alves da Silva, from Adamantina (SP); and Teresinha Gouvêa da Silva, from Nova Serrana (MG).
Photos by: Cláudio Medeiros
