On August 7 2017, SUSTech’s Department of Mathematics and the Shenzhen Institute of Mathematical Sciences jointly organized a high school students experience summer camp in the university’s campus. The summer camp brought together 40 students from all over the country as well as overseas screened from thousands of applications to participate in the camp for a period of two weeks.

Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University School of Mathematical Sciences Professor Wang Shi, former vice chairman of the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Political Consultative Conference Wang Bin, vice president of SUSTech Tang Tao and Chair of the Department of Mathematics Xia Zhihong attended the opening ceremony.

In his opening speech, Professor Xia introduced the flourishing development of the Department of Mathematics at SUSTech since its creation in June 2015 and introduced the construction and development of a large data center in close cooperation with the local industry. It highlighted the construction of the Department of Mathematics’ Student dormitory, and the organization of the summer camp, showing the students and parents the two consecutive years that it has been held.

Wang is one of the sponsors of the Shenzhen Mathematical Science Association. He talked about how he witnessed the rapid development of Shenzhen, recalling the neck-breaking speed at which the city grew, in major part due to the strong support of the municipal government. He concluded saying he was convinced that SUSTech will grow into a world-class university.

One of the organizers of this summer camp and winner of the International Mathematical Olympiad Gold Medal, Yao Jiangang introduced the summer camp program. It is to be divided into two types activities, lectures and workshop training, proving to be an interesting and challenging combination. The lectures will introduce trending math and math-related fields, so that students gain a more vivid and intuitive understanding of what they can expect should they choose this major. The workshops will then focus on the study of problem-solving processes to improve the students’ mathematical thinking ability.

Wang Shi is an expert in the field of topology. During the first session of the summer camp, he introduced the development history of non-Euclidean geometry and the classic Pangkelai model, and then through a concrete illustration of topology, presented a number of important concepts and theorem.

The summer camp teachers overseeing the activities are experts in mathematics and math-related fields, and four of them will represent China in the International Mathematical Olympiad competition, which will be led by professor Yao Yijun. Yu Yifeng, who teaches at the University of California, Irvine, designed a maths course to improve students’ rigorous logical reasoning skills and to teach in English.

It is understood that the SUSTech Department of Mathematics and the Shenzhen Institute of Mathematical Sciences will also organize more activities in the future to promote mathematics and related fields.

Contributed by: Department of Mathematics
Photos by: Li Chengkun
Edited by: Jeremy Welburn
Layout by Semson J Nip