On August 10, the Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics in collaboration with the Vietnam Mathematical Society organized a series of activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vietnam's participation in the International Mathematical Olympiad - IMO (1974 - 2024).

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) has been held since 1959 in Romania. Vietnam started participating in 1974 and has sent teams 48 times with 288 contestants, including 18 women.

To date, Vietnam has won 271 medals at the IMO (including 69 gold medals, 117 silver medals, 85 bronze medals), the percentage of students winning medals is 94%. There are 10 excellent students with perfect scores, 10 students with 2 gold medals.

Professor Ngo Bao Chau is one of 10 Vietnamese students to date who have won the Gold Medal twice (at IMO 1988 and IMO 1989). He is currently the Scientific Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics and a professor at the University of Chicago, USA. He is the first and only Vietnamese to date to win the Fields Medal.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister Hoang Minh Son said that the Ministry of Education and Training always emphasizes the role of mathematics from high school to university and postgraduate training, in research; especially in the current stage of science and technology development.

To maintain and improve the achievements of the Vietnamese math team as well as promote math teaching, increase interest and learn math effectively, Deputy Minister Hoang Minh Son said that we must do better in teaching and learning math in high school and better math research in universities. How can we make math not only occupy more of the training program but also make teaching and learning math interesting for learners?

Professor Ngo Bao Chau shared that he was very happy with the achievements, especially the solidarity and cohesion between the Vietnamese mathematics community at home and abroad. He was also happy with the attention of the Government and that mathematics is still one of the favorite subjects of young people. However, Professor Ngo Bao Chau also expressed his concerns about how to make the movement of learning mathematics more sustainable and widespread, as well as how to make mathematics and other basic subjects become voluntary choices of young people.

According to Professor Ngo Bao Chau, in the era of information explosion and artificial intelligence, teaching and learning mathematics needs to return to the basic foundations instead of cramming in a lot of new knowledge. Only then will mathematics in particular and basic subjects in general become a voluntary choice for young people.

"We are talking a lot about training human resources for artificial intelligence, then semiconductors - mastering these technologies. But how can we master them if the time for Math and perhaps many other basic subjects is cut, both in high school and university? In the era of information explosion, of artificial intelligence, I think we need to avoid cramming new knowledge, but need to return to the basics, with basic principles of reasoning and thinking" - Professor Chau said.

He also believes that if a country has about 1,000 - 10,000 children who are very good at math, the country's science and technology future will be different in 20 years.