STEM Contests

Students Encouraged to Share Video Math Pitches

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 02/05/19

Students who appreciate math have almost a month to create an "elevator speech" video telling others why math is important and relevant. One winner will have his or her one- or two-minute movie shown during an upcoming math conference and win $1,000.

The contest is being hosted by the National Academies' Board on Mathematical Sciences and Analytics (BMSA). It's open to students as well as early career professionals. The video submission can be an unedited selfie, an animation or any other format publishable to YouTube.

The winning entry will be announced and played during the upcoming Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) conference on Computational Science and Engineering, which takes place Feb. 25 through Mar. 1 in Spokane, WA. (The winner need not be a SIAM member or attend the conference.)

As officials explained on the contest site, "The mathematical sciences are part of everyday life. Modern communication, transportation, science, engineering, technology, medicine, manufacturing, security, finance, and many other disciplines depend on the mathematical sciences, even if we don't always realize it. It is important for mathematical researchers to convey the importance of their work to diverse audiences. This often comes down to being able to quickly and simply describe what you are doing and why."

The deadline for video submissions is Feb. 27, 2019. The winner will be announced by Mar. 1.

Learn more on the contest site.