Olympiad send-off celebrates young chemists with a bright future
Students, mentors, sponsors and organisers gathered to wish our 2016 International Chemistry Olympiad team well as they set off for the annual competition in Georgia.
The team are: Muhammed Ubaid Khan from King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys, Jimin Li from D’Overbroeck’s College in Oxford, Matthew Harris from Winchester College and Katarzyna Zator from Leweston School.
The final four were selected through the UK Chemistry Olympiad, itself an extremely challenging competition, open to all schools in the UK. They now represent the nation at the the International Chemistry Olympiad, an idea developed in the former Czechoslovakia in 1968, with the aim of increasing international collaboration and the exchange of information between nations.
INEOS prize winner
Congratulations also to Rory Cockshaw, student at Space Studio West London, who wins the 2016 INEOS prize for achieving the highest marks in the first round of the UK Olympiad competition.
Rory, who is 15, received £1,000 for his school’s chemistry activities, to spend on new equipment and materials to promote chemistry. This prize is only available to UK state schools that have not participated in the competition in the past five years.
Rory explained the process he went through to prepare for the chemistry Olympiad challenge. He says: "It was a couple of weeks of fairly solid revision of things I’d never really heard of before but it was also fun. I quite enjoy challenges like this and I also enjoy learning and soaking up new things. I liked it a lot. When you’re kind of thrown in to the deep end it is a lot more fun at times.
"I want to do more chemistry Olympiad challenges and things like that. I’m going to carry on in academia with chemistry – but that’s only because chemistry is fun, I wouldn’t do it if it was boring or I didn’t enjoy it."
Best of luck. Do well. Enjoy it – I think that’s the key thing – enjoy the experience. They’ll come back enriched by the experience, enriched by meeting a lot of different people from all over the world.
Burlington House celebration
Our new president, Sir John Holman, spoke at a celebration event at Burlington House and told the Olympiad team: "We wish you all the best of luck in representing UK chemistry on the international stage.
"I’d like to thank the members of our UK Olympiad working group, who have worked so hard to make this year’s competition a success. These teachers and academics play a vital role, from writing test questions to training students. Thank you as well to the staff at the Royal Society of Chemistry who helped organise this competition and this event.
"I wish all of our winners the very best for your future studies. Judging by your achievements, UK chemistry has a very bright future indeed."
Tom Crotty, director of Olympiad sponsors INEOS, explains that there are both altruistic and pragmatic reasons for their continued involvement with the scheme.
He says: "Clearly, as a company we have a very strong vested interest in making sure that the UK is producing the best chemists around, so we can employ them, quite simply. We need really, really high-quality people
"Actually, if you look at our operation, we don’t just employ chemists for chemistry. A lot of our top people are chemists and chemical engineers who have started in a lab or on a plant and who have become managers of multi-billion pound global businesses. The disciplines of a science-based career are really helpful in developing a business career.
"Every year I’m so impressed with these youngsters. They are so, so bright. The other thing I’m always really impressed by, with the INEOS prize, giving a prize to a student from a state school – you get to meet the teachers.
"I’m so impressed by the teachers because you generally find that kids have been inspired by a great teacher. And that’s the other reason we want to sponsor this, we want to encourage them because great teachers will create great chemists for the future."
Intensive training
Speaking to our international team ahead of their trip to Georgia, Kate Zator said they have gained a lot from an intensive training camp in Cambridge in the run-up to the trip to Georgia.
She explained: "We’ve spent the mornings doing practicals, all the afternoon doing theory. I enjoyed both because we don’t get to do much of them in school. I really enjoyed learning what I theoretically don’t have to, with other people who really want to learn, so that makes me sit down and actually go through something over and over again.
Jimin Li added: "Everyone’s been doing the practicals and study together, so the study environment is really good. Everyone’s really keen. We do make time for fun in the evening, especially during dinner but we sit down for some more reading after that until 11 or 12."
The 48th International Chemistry Olympiad is being held in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, from July 23 to August 1. Muhammed Ubaid Khan explained what he was most looking forward to, apart from the chance to compete.
He said: "I think definitely meeting many different people of many different nationalities who all share your interest in chemistry. It’s more about the fun than anything else – I mean we expect to do reasonably well – but I think it’s more about the experience of going to an international competition and representing the UK, and just having a good time.
"I think the UK’s only not received a medal once so hopefully we’ll receive four medals – we’re aiming for four golds!"
The final team member, Matthew Harris, explained how pleased he is that the team has got on so well: "We’ve all applied to the same university course next year, so could be spending quite a lot of time with each other. All of us tend to have areas that we’ve come across more, enjoy more. So, particularly with some of these more difficult questions we find that we complement each other very nicely. It’s going to be a joy to work with them for the next three, four years, depending on what we carry on and decide to do in future."