The first Gold Medalist from Bangladesh at the International Math Olympiad, Ahmed Zawad Chowdhury along with three Bronze Medalist team members visited BRAC University, CSE department on 25 July. The Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Team was hosted by the National Coach, Professor Mahbub Majumdar, CSE, BRAC University.
The four members enjoyed the day at the CSE Department by meeting the Chairperson, Professor Md Abdul Mottalib and other faculty members. One of the Academic Coordinators of Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Committee, Ipshita Bonhi Upoma, a Research Assistant at the CSE department accompanied the team. At the end of the day, the team also visited a Project Showcasing event arranged by the Robotics Club.
The six-member National Team and Leader Professor Mahbubul Alam Majumdar and Deputy Leader Munir Hasan participated in the 59th International Mathematical Olympiad in Romania. Ahmed Zawad Chowdhury from Cantonment English School and College, Chittagong won the first ever Gold Medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad for Bangladesh. In the same contest, Thanic Nur Samin, Tamzid Morshed Rubab, Joydip Saha from Notre Dame College, Dhaka won three Bronze Medals. Rahul Saha from Notre Dame College, Dhaka and Soumitra Das from Police Lines High School, Faridpur received Honorable Mentions. Scoring 32 points out of 42, the Bangladeshi Gold Medalist, Ahmed Zawad Chowdhury secured 27th Position among 597 participants coming from all over the world. This year, Bangladesh ranked 41st place among the 107 countries that participated in International Mathematical Olympiad. Bangladesh had the highest scoring team member from any developing country in the world.
Professor Mahbubul Alam Majumdar has been the National Coach of Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad Committee for the last 12 years. Over the previous 12 years, Bangladesh received 6 silver medals, 22 Bronze medals and 27 Honorable Mentions at the International Mathematical Olympiad.
Professor Majumdar is well known for his fundamental contributions to inflationary cosmology and string cosmology. He wrote the most cited mathematics/theoretical physics paper by a Bangladeshi in the past 20 years and his work is included in standard textbooks on string cosmology. At BRAC University he also works on machine learning, blockchain and other state-of the-art technologies. He was educated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (B.Sc); Stanford University, (M.S); and the University of Cambridge (Ph.D). He was one of the most well known Bangladeshi-American students of his generation winning numerous honors and was recognized by two different US Presidents. In 2005 after writing several important papers, he decided to return to Bangladesh. He joined the CSE Department of BRAC University as a Professor in 2014.