JAMAICA earned two platinum medals, among the most prestigious, at the Caribbean STEM Olympiads’ second annual event, held January 17-21 in a virtual format.

The Caribbean Science Foundation (CSF)-held event saw individuals and teams representing educational institutions, clubs, or themselves, competing in the math olympiad, computer coding olympiad, and robotics olympiad at three different age levels: 12-15, 16-18, and 19-21.

The math olympiad was held in a
Jeopardy-style format and covered topics ranging from consumer arithmetic to vector calculus. The computer coding olympiad tasked applicants with creating apps, games and websites aimed at solving a challenge faced by Caribbean communities. The challenges tackled by teams in the 2024 olympiads included geohazards and climate change, inter- and intra-country transportation, public health, noncommunicable diseases, crime, and money movement and financial education. The robotics olympiad tasked applicants with building innovative robots from kits (at Level I), and complex robots starting from scratch with a set of random parts at Level III.

A total of 131 students from 11 Caribbean countries registered for the 2024 olympiads. After the preliminary rounds, 39 teams (83 students) made it to the finals. There were 47 finalists in the math olympiad, 22 in the computer coding olympiad, and 14 in the robotics olympiad. Medal certificates and cash prizes of US$500, $400, $300 and $200 were awarded to the teams winning platinum, gold, silver and bronze medals, respectively.

At the awards and closing ceremony held January 21, Jamaica led the medal count with eight medals, followed by Antigua and Barbuda with six, Belize with four, Barbados with three, Saint Lucia with two, and Grenada, Guyana, Saint Kitts & Nevis and Trinidad &Tobago with one each.

The Jamaican team, consisting of Chad Wright, Micah Edwards and Sidan-E Walker from Campion College, but who represented themselves, won the Level 1 math olympiad platinum medal. Michaela Brown, Jamía Williamson, Kelsey Atkinstall and Kathryn McLean, also from Campion College but representing themselves, together won a platinum medal in the Level 2 computer coding olympiad for their public health-focused project, HospitalFlow. From Belize, Giselie Garcia, who attends Muffles College High School but represented herself, won the platinum medal in the Level 1 computer coding olympiad with her hurricane preparedness project titled Protective Measures. Avinda Dhoray, Saiesh Rampersad and Kovid Capildeo from Presentation College, Chaguanas, in Trinidad and Tobago, together won a platinum medal for stellar performance in the Level 2 math olympiad, while a team consisting of Kahlil Phillip, Rochelle Griffith and Tristan Pivotte, former students of TA Marryshow Community College, Grenada, and who are currently on a gap year, earned a platinum medal in the Level 3 math olympiad.

“The STEM outlook for the region is very positive,” said Professor Cardinal Warde, interim executive director of CSF. “This year we raised the bar a little higher than it was in the inaugural year (2023) for the math olympiad, and I was again impressed by the performance of the medalists. To further raise the bar for our robotics and coding efforts, starting in April of 2024, the CSF will offer coaching sessions for interested robotics and coding teams to help them prepare for our 2025 robotics and computer coding olympiads.”

The competing students also had a lot to say. Team Ravens of Jamaica, who won a silver medal in Level 2 robotics, said, “Thank you on behalf of Team Ravens; this experience was truly amazing, and we have learnt a lot from this opportunity to participate!”

The institutional sponsors included CIBC, Emera Caribbean, Peloton International, Trident Insurance, and TAG software. The Caribbean STEM Olympiads is an initiative of CSF, a regional non-profit with the mission of assisting with the development and diversification of the economies of the Caribbean region by promoting STEM education reform and stimulating technology-based entrepreneurship.