Excellent results for the Technion and the Israeli delegation to the International Mathematics Competition held last week:
Ofir Gorodetsky placed 12th & Shahar Papini placed 25th out of 305 participants
Yet another great achievement for Haifa’s Technion: In last week’s International Mathematics Competition for University Students, the Israeli team took 5th place out of 77 teams. Of the seven members on the Israeli team who represented the country’s higher education institutions, two students from the Technion performed exceptionally. Ofir Gorodetsky, a 19 year old from Haifa, placed 12th out of 305 competitors and Shahar Papini, also a Technion student, placed 25th. These two competitors surpassed contestants from prestigious universities from around the world.
During the competition, Israeli representatives won 4 first prizes and 3 second prizes, so that by the end of the competition the Israeli delegation reached 5th place in team scores, beating the Iranian delegation, considered the best mathematics team.
Ofir Gorodetsky, who completed his undergraduate mathematics studies at the Technion last year when he was only 19, is now a soldier in an elite army unit. While serving in the IDF, he takes Mathematics graduate courses at the Tel Aviv University. His father, Grisha Gorodetsky, is from a family of Russian refuseniks who in the 1950s lived in the city of Samara on the banks of the Volga River, and his mother is from Moldova. Grisha explained that his son, Ofir, who was born in Israel, has loved mathematics all his life and hopes to work in this field in the future.
Ofir, who returned to his army base immediately after coming back from the competition, attended the Ironi Hey high school in Haifa and while still in high school skipped a year and registered for mathematics studies at the Open University. After one year he transferred to the Technion where he completed his undergraduate degree last year, making both the President’s and Dean’s List.
Shahar Papini, who placed 25th in the world, also serves in an elite unit. He is a Technion reserve officer and will serve for six years in the army. A Haifa resident, aged 21, he completed his undergraduate degree in computer science, mathematics and physics. Shahar, after returning to Israeli, reported that “the atmosphere at the competition was good; we did not mix politics and mathematics. We focused on the competition itself and did really well.”
According to Shahar, “in the past few years we have been doing really well. Last year we also placed high. Israel is at the top of international mathematics and just like last year, this year, we also beat the strong Iranian delegation as well as representatives from world famous universities.”