Guyana has won a bronze medal at the Caribbean STEM (Science, Techno-logy, Engineering and Math) Olympiads.
A release yesterday from the Caribbean Science Foundation (CSF) said that the bronze medal for Guyana was earned in Level I of the Computer Coding Olympiad by Tejasvarun Kandavel of Queen’s College for his video game “Adventuring Climate Change” which focused on climate change awareness.
The release said that Guyana also had two other finalist teams in the Olympiads, 12-year-old Temidara Oyedotun from School of the Nations who competed in the Level I Math Olympiad and “QC’s Mc²” consisting of Angel Henry, Samara Munro and Ariel Mohanlall from Queen’s College who also participated in the Level I Math Olympiad.
The CSF held the second annual Caribbean STEM Olympiads (CSO) on 17 – 21 January 2024 in a virtual format. In these Science, Technology, Engi-neering and Math (STEM) Olympiads, individuals and teams representing educational institutions, clubs or themselves contested in the (a) Math Olympiad, (b) Computer Coding Olympiad and (c) Robotics Olympiad at three different age levels (12 – 15, 16 – 18 and 19 – 21).
The release said that the Math Olympiad was held in a Jeopardy-style format and covered topics ranging from consumer arithmetic to vector calculus. The Computer Coding Olympiad required applicants to create apps, games, and websites aimed at solving a challenge faced by Carib-bean communities. The challenges tackled by teams in the 2024 Olympiads encompassed geohazards and climate change, inter and intra country transportation, public health, non-communicable diseases, crime, and money movement and financial education. The Robotics Olympiad tasked applicants with building innovative robots from kits at Level I, and complex robots starting from scratch with a set of random parts at Level III.
A total of 131 students from 11 Caribbean countries registered for the 2024 Olympiads.
After the preliminary rounds, 39 teams (83 students) made it to the finals. There were 47 finalists in the Math Olympiad, 22 in the Computer Coding Olympiad, and 14 in the Robotics Olympiad. Medal certificates and cash prizes of US$ 500, 400, 300 and 200 were awarded to the teams winning platinum, gold, silver, and bronze medals, respectively. The Awards and Closing Ceremony, held on Sunday 21 January 2024, showed that Jamaica led the medal count with 8 medals, followed by Antigua and Barbuda with 6, Belize with 4, Barbados with 3, Saint Lucia with 2, and Grenada, Guyana, Saint Kitts & Nevis and Trinidad &Tobago with 1 each.
Kandavel said, “I would like to thank the CSF for giving me the opportunity to participate in the Coding Olympiad Finals. I would also like to thank the judges for reviewing my project and giving me feedback on how to improve it.” One of the finalists Temidara Oyedo-tun also from Guyana said, “I enjoyed how calming and caring the staff, judges and the overall atmosphere of the competition was, and these Olympiads now (emboldened) me to continue competing in STEM Olympiads”.
The Institutional sponsors included CIBC, Emera Caribbean, Peloton Inter-national, Trident Insu-rance, and TAG software. The Caribbean STEM Olympiads is an initiative of the CSF – a regional non-profit NGO with the mission of assisting with the development and diversification of the economies of the Caribbean Region by promoting STEM education reform and stimulating technology-based entrepreneurship.
