How 15 Year Old Math Genius from Africa-Nigeria defeats UK, US, China & Canada Students in Math Contest

Faith Odunsi, 15, a pupil of The Ambassadors Schools, Ota, Ogun State, who recently won the Global Open Mathematics Tournament, an international competition with participants from Europe, Africa, America, Asia, and Australia. The 15-year-old Senior Secondary School (SSS) 3 student from Ijebu in Ogun State had gone through some stages before the final one where she was crowned the winner of the tournament. The first stage featured a computer-based test (CBT) as a result of COVID-19.

Here, the competitors had to answer many questions in one hour. Odunsi’s score in the test was 66. The second stage took the same format and she scored 66 again. The quarter and semi-finals were on Microsoft themes. In these stages, questions were asked and the competitors were required to put in their answers; the first to put in the correct answer got 10 points. She noted that the first stage was the toughest for her as she was just getting familiar with the CBT and timing. She added that she became scared she might be defeated by other pupils at the semi-finals when she entered a tiebreaker with a female student from one of the Asian countries, a newspaper reported.

Odunsi finally won with a margin of 30 points at the finals with the first runner-up scoring 10 points. Odunsi accumulated 40 points. She was convinced she would win when she got the last question correctly.