Holmdel Teen Named Finalist In Global Math Contest

HOLMDEL, NJ - A global pandemic isn’t about to stop this group of High Technology High School students from participating in the final round of the prestigious MathWorks international math competition.

The team – comprised of Holmdel resident Hazem Zaky, alongside classmates Adithya Balachandran, Lasya Balachandran, David Chang and Alexander Postovskiy – recently advanced to the finals in MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge, a unique competition that drew more than 2,400 eleventh and twelfth graders in the U.S. and sixth form students in the U.K. this year. The final hurdle will take place on April 26 when teams will present their findings to a panel of professional mathematicians.

For the second year in a row, all presentations and judging are taking place virtually instead of at an all-day, in-person event in New York City due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In February, participating students used mathematical modeling for 14 consecutive hours in late February and early March to come up with a solution to a real-world issue: defeating the digital divide to make the internet accessible to all. The challenge asked teams to create a model to predict what internet connectivity will cost over the next decade, how minimum required bandwidth should be determined, and an optimal way to distribute cellular nodes in a region to maximize access. A total of 535 teams submitted papers detailing their recommendations.

“This year's topic touches on several relevant issues we are facing as a global community,” said M3 Challenge director of judging and lead problem developer Karen Bliss of the Virginia Military Institute. “One is the social justice aspect of internet access. While this has been a problem for years, the pandemic has highlighted the reality of the digital divide: those who don't have fast, reliable internet are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to access to education and the ability to work from home, among many other things.”

M3 Challenge, now in its 16th year, is a program founded by the Philadelphia-based Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and sponsored by MathWorks. It spotlights applied mathematics as a powerful problem-solving tool and motivates students to consider further education and careers in applied math, computational and data sciences, and technical computing. Winning teams will be awarded a share of $125,000 in scholarships, with the champion team receiving $22,500 in 2021.

The five other finalist teams hail from high schools in Johns Creek, G.A., Lincolnshire, I.L. (two teams), Livingston, N.J. and Philadelphia, P.A.

“M3 Challenge provides a wonderful opportunity to work as a team to formulate and apply mathematical models in intractable real-world situations,” Adithya Balachandran said in a statement. “Through this opportunity, we were able to experience the power of analytical thinking and mathematical problem solving to gain insights that help address a wide range of complex questions. The rewarding 14-hour experience also showed us how we could apply mathematical modeling to predict the effectiveness of solutions to our most pressing global challenges."