International Mathematical Modeling Challenge


The International Mathematical Modeling Challenge is an international mathematical modeling competition for high school students in team mathematical modeling co-sponsored by COMAP and the NeoUnion ESC Organization. Teams are selected on a country-by-country basis, with each country sending its top two teams to the competition. The IMMC was inspired by the HiMCM, a similar contest sponsored by COMAP but mainly attracting teams within the United States. The HiMCM in turn was established in the 1990s to create a high school counterpart to COMAP’s MCM. Contestants in the IMMC are given five days to research and write a mathematical paper detailing their mathematical model for a given situation. At the conclusion of the five-day period, papers are sent to an international expert committee composed of mathematics faculty from the world’s leading universities. Traditionally, 3-4 teams are awarded the top designation of Outstanding and invited to an awards ceremony, held in a different country each year.

Team selection

Each participating country is expected to choose its two best teams of four contestants each to compete in the IMMC. Globally, different methods have been used to select teams from their respective countries.
Hong Kong holds the contest early and allows any interested team to participate. A national judging panel selects the two best papers to move on to the international round of the competition. In 2015, 60 papers came out of the Greater China region alone.
In 2015, the United States used a different qualification process, inviting the top two teams from the 2014 HiMCM to compete in the IMMC. In 2016, the United States adopted a hybrid of Hong Kong’s approach and its own former approach: any team receiving a score of Meritorious or higher in the 2015 HiMCM was invited to compete in the 2016 IMMC. As in Hong Kong, the United States held the IMMC early, completed a national round of judging, and selected the two best papers to move on to the international round.
Most countries use a selection process similar to that used by Hong Kong, and countries entering the IMMC for the first time will also likely adopt a similar process.

Judging

Papers passing the national selection round move on to the international expert judging panel. In 2015, the Expert Panel included:

2015

17 teams from the following countries competed in the 2015 IMMC:


Of these teams, four were awarded the top designation of International Outstanding and invited to the awards ceremony in Hong Kong:
Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA, USA
The Affiliated High School of Peking University, Beijing, China
Raffles Girls' School, Singapore
Shanghai Nanyang Model School, Shanghai, China



Seven were awarded the Meritorious designation:
Four were awarded the Honorable Mention designation:
Two were awarded the Successful Participant designation:
40 teams from the following 23 countries or regions competed in the 2016 IMMC:
Of these teams, three were awarded the top designation of International Outstanding and invited to the awards ceremony at the International Congress on Mathematics Education in Hamburg, Germany:
Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Diocesan Girls' School, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Pui Ching Middle School, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Fourteen were awarded the Meritorious designation:
Nine were awarded the Honorable Mention designation:
Fourteen were awarded the Successful Participant designation:
49 teams from the following 27 countries/regions competed in the 2017 IMMC:
Of these teams, one was awarded the top designation of International Outstanding and invited to the awards ceremony at the Harvard University, Cambridge MA., USA along with three randomly selected Meritorious teams from Argentina, South Korea and Russia.
NC School of Science and Mathematics, NC, USA
Seven were awarded the Meritorious designation:
Twenty-seven were awarded the Honorable Mention designation:
Fourteen were awarded the Successful Participant designation:
The 2015 IMMC winning teams from the USA, Singapore, and China were brought to Hong Kong for the IMMC Award Presentation Ceremony on 5 July 2015 at Hong Kong University, sponsored by Guangdong Qtone Education Co., Knowledge Magazine, Hong Kong Federation of Education Workers, Competition on System Modeling & Optimization, CUHK, HKACE, and the Hong Kong Entrepreneurs and Executives Club.
Special guests included Hong Kong political leader the Honorable Mrs. Fanny Law and movie directors Mr Tsui Siu-Ming and Mr Tang Yat-Ming. Professor Frederick Leung, Chairman of the Board of Faculty, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, gave the opening speech. Law encouraged educators in Hong Kong and elsewhere to continue to pursue the type of educational innovation promoted by the IMMC. Given that the 2015 problem revolved around mathematically modeling a movie filming production schedule, directors Tsui and Tang discussed their own experiences in the movie industry and how applicable teams’ models were to real-world movie filming decisionmaking.
The 2016 IMMC winning teams from the USA and Hong Kong, in addition to the Meritorious German team, were brought to Hamburg, Germany for the IMMC Award Ceremony on 26 July 2016 at the University of Hamburg as part of the quadrennial International Congress on Mathematical Education. Dr. Sol Garfunkel described how the contest has evolved and discussed plans for the future.

Media coverage

The IMMC has received broad press coverage throughout the world, with the majority of coverage concentrated in the U.S. and Greater China. The IMMC has been featured by:










































Leadership

The IMMC is overseen by an international Organizing Committee of the following people:
Advisory/Academic Committee for IMMC in Greater China:
Expert Panel for IMMC in Greater China:
The 2017 IMMC contest period will end on May 8, 2017. Results will be announced in June, and teams awarded the Outstanding designation will be honored.