Students bring home medals from UK math competition

A Mexican filmmaker continues supporting students by funding travel to international competitions.

Guillermo del Toro helped Mexico’s national mathematics team travel to the United Kingdom, where they won four medals at the 60^th annual International Mathematics Olympiad in Bath.

Del Toro had already pledged support for the team to travel to South Africa for another competition next month.

According to the Mexican team’s Twitter account, Bruno Gutiérrez Chávez, a young “mathlete” from Colima, won a silver medal, while Ana Paula Jiménez Días and Tomas Francisco Cantú Rodríguez, both from Mexico City, and Eric Iván Hernández Palacios, from Nuevo León, won bronze medals.

The Mexican team won 111 points, coming in 41^st place among the 112 participating countries.

Del Toro offered to pay for the team’s travel because of delays and cuts in funding from the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).

Conacyt has provided the Mexican Mathematics Society, which manages the Olympiad team, with 1.6 million pesos for this year. But the society says that the funding is insufficient, and it has had to resort to fundraising to pay for travel to international competitions.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Economista (sp)