06 AMC 1991-99

The main two features of the 1990s for the AMC were the governance change to the Australian Mathematics Trust in 1992 and the big growth into Asia. The first of these changes would have been relatively invisible to the outside observer, but the growth into Asia changed the face of the AMC and this is described in more detail below.

1991: First Asian entries

In 1991 the AMF committee, as it had become known, received a request from the sponsors, to take entries from Singapore. We had for more than a decade taken entries from New Zealand and Pacific islands, Anglophone and Francophone but there was originally a little concern about expanding this far. I would have to admit that I was one of those initially most concerned. I certainly felt that if Asian entries became large we may lose the Australian character of the event and maybe even lose it altogether. Singapore is smaller than Australia but there were much bigger countries also in the region. The discussion wasn't too complicated or controversial though. We decided it could be accommodated and felt it would be good to have more countries involved. At the same time Peter O'Halloran had contact from Roger Eggleton, an Australian Applied Mathematician working at the time at the University of Brunei Darussalam, and arranged a small entry from this country.

As it happened, in 1991 there were just over 1600 entries from Singapore and a further thousand from Brunei.

As described in Chapter 5, the national presentation was held in Parliament House. Guest of Honour at the presentation was Governor General Bill Hayden. The presentation followed in the Great Hall. It was a spectacular event, and was attended by new University of Canberra Vice Chancellor Don Aitkin, who as described in Chapter 5, saw how a much bigger picture could emerge (and did).

With paying entries from Singapore, it was decided medallists should be flown to Canberra for the presentation, and there were three of them in this first year. One of these in fact was the only perfect scorer, and BH Neumann prize winner. In fact one of the Philippine students also won a medal.

Here is the Singapore perfect scorer, Hua Chek Beng, photographed with me and Bernhard Neumann, at Parliament House.

I should not depart from 1991 without noting the emergence of some brilliant students among AMC medallists. There had always been a high correlation between IMO team members and AMC Medallists, which verified the integrity of the AMC. Australia had had IMO Gold Medallists in the 1980s with Andrew Hassell and Terry Tao. Two who were about to get Gold medals were now emerging. Benjamin Burton appeared on the medal list for the first time in Year 11 and Anthony Henderson in Year 10. Two Silver medallists-to-come were Frank Calegari and William Hawkins, while in the Junior Medal list for the first time was the brilliant New Zealand student James McGowan, who would earn a whole swag of AMC medals and distinguish himself also at IMO. The full list of medals can be found here.

1992

In 1992 the AMF Committee was substantially preoccupied with the governing changes, resulting in the Trust being established later in the year, albeit AMF Limited no longer being a company. It had become a Subtrust, with the same basic autonomy as it had in the past in AMC management and policy, and retaining its own financial control.

1992 was to prove another gilt-edged year, with numbers continuing their onward march and strong public relations. Also, the Trust, as it was becoming during the year, had established a BH Neumann Award for people who had put in sustained and distinguished effort into the Trust's activities, or in fact with other organisations with similar ideals.

The medal ceremony for the first time in Melbourne was held in Government House, and hosted by Governor Richard McGarvie QC.The presentation coincided with a BH Neumann Award by the Governor to Bruce Henry, one of Victoria's (and the country's) outstanding mathematics educators.

Governor McGarvie with Bruce Henry after the BH Neumann Award presentation.

Some of the guests at the 1992 medal ceremony, from left Bernhard Neumann, Westpac Deputy Chairman Sir James Balderstone, UC Vice Chancellor and AMT Board Chair Don Aitkin, Governor McGarvie, Peter O'Halloran and Peter Taylor.

The Advisory Committee, representing a wide stakeholder group, continued its role. And it was really useful in communication between sponsors Westpac and AMT and maintaining good mutual understandings generally. Here it is at one of its 1992 meetings. Rear, from left Ali Rejali (visitor from Iran), Sally Bakker (AMT Manager), Peter Taylor, Bob Bryce (AusMS), Warren Atkins (AMF), Bernhard Neumann (CMA), David Paget (AMOC), Squadron Leader Ron Christie (Australian Computer Society), Howard Reeves (AAMT). Front, from left Tony Benner (Westpac), Janine Bavin (Westpac), Peter O'Halloran, Wendy Novak (Professor Mitchell's PA), Professor Robert Mitchell (Assistant Vice Chancellor, University of Canberra).

The AMC medal list again included Benjamin Burton, who also won an IMO Gold Medal, and Anthony Henderson, who achieved a perfect score, won an IMO Silver this year and was to go on to a Gold. Anthony Henderson had a perfect score, as he did the following year, and when Peter O'Halloran broke the news to me on both occasions, I felt easy that I had entered the correct answers on to the computer with no typos. The full list of medals can be found here.

As President of WFNMC, Peter O'Halloran had also succeeded in granting awards, in the names of Hilbert and Erdos, to go to mathematical educators in a way similar to that in which the BH Neumann Awards worked. AMF organised four of its members to attend ICME-7 in Quebec, and ensured there was a strong competitions section. I was appointed convenor of the academic presentations on competitions, and the goodwill which had developed in Waterloo in 1900 continued, with a very strong set of papers contributed, and audience.

The first set of Awards was made, the most memorable being the Hilbert Award to Nikolay Konstantinov. Nikolay, as often seemed to be the case, arrived late at the conference and missed the presentation. When he did arrive an improvised presentation was arranged and it was the only time I ever saw him wear a tie. From left after the award are Alexander Soifer (USA), Nikolay Konstantinov (Russia), Mark Saul (USA), Peter O'Halloran, Ed Barbeau (Canada), Marcin Kuczma (Poland) and Kiril Bankov (Bulgaria).

1993

1993 was a relatively uneventful year, albeit growth continued strongly. The year started in Perth at the biennial AAMT Conference, which we had decided to support by holding our state and national director meetings in conjunction.The meeting itself saw a number of BH Neumann Awards presented to those State and National Directors with sufficiently sustained service. A number of networking events also took place. For example, Anna Nakos met Peter O'Halloran, and she agreed to join the Challenge committee later in the year.

The National Award Ceremony was also a relatively low-key even, being held in Westpac's Headquarters in Sydney by the ABC's Robyn Williams, who was one of the original Trust Board members. The medal list was headed by IMO Gold Medallist Anthony Henderson, whereas other members of the IMO team, Silver Medallists William Hawkins and William Hart were there, and younger improvers Akshay Venkatesh and New Zealander James McGowan. The full list of medals can be found here.

One busy aspect of life was continuing the new BH Neumann Awards, with a number being awarded, including George Szekeres and Esther Klein Szekeres, who had come to Australia after living their earlier lives in Hungary, where competitions had a very high profile.

Another two popular awardees were University of Southern Queensland academics Chris Harman (left) and Ash Plank. Chris was a long-time member of the AMC Problems Committee while Ash worked with AMOC as an Editor, and worked with Neil Williams to produce the iconic Tool Chest.

1994: Changes

As reported in Chapter 8, this was the year of Peter O'Halloran's passing. This is reported on in more detail there. Other than the changes relating to the position of Executive Director, as discussed in Chapter 9, I could not keep up the workload of Problems Committee Chairman and Warren Atkins, who had been the Foundation Chairman, agreed to take the position back.

Not long before Peter's death, he advertised for, and appointed, another in-house mathematician, in Andrei Storozhev. Andrei had only recently migrated with his family from Russia, where he had earned a PhD in Group Theory at Moscow State University. He had been brought up in a positive environment, Moscow's School No 2, being a special school with general academic profile. Andrei had attended classes at the school when Konstantinov visited. Andrei was to continue until about 2008, when he was to embark on a computing career in the public service, but he proved a major asset to the Trust, was very popular as a person, and continued to serve on the Problems Committees as a volunteer after moving employment.

The Problems Committee was now meeting in May, rather than August, to give itself more time. This is the committee at the May meeting. From left Finbarr Holland (Cork, Ireland), Assoc Prof Chris Harman (USQ), Andrei Storozhev (AMT), Warren Atkins, John Carty (Merici College, Canberra), Robin Thornely (Canberra), Brother Kevin Friel (Kogarah Marist, NSW), Dimitry Fomin (St Petersburg, Russia), Professor Anne Street (UQ), Dr Martin Ward (ANU), Assoc Prof Sheila Williams (UQ), Peter Taylor, Rod Watson (Melbourne), Peter O'Halloran, John Munro (UC), Patrick Mackerras (ANU).

BH Neumann Awards were family affairs, consistent with the volunteer character of the Trust. This one in May 1994 was awarded to Bob Thompson, and his daughters are part of the occasion. In fact it is a tradition that family members, particularly members of the immediate family, are present, especially given the time lost with them. Bob became director of UC's IT services on campus, but when the 1976 event was held he was deputy director. He played a key role always in facilitating the computer processing of the results and became AMF Treasurer in 1992. He is a mathematician also and was one of the early people to join the AMF committee, and he remained as such throughout the period covered by this history. He was particularly noted also for his role in the National Award Ceremonies during the whole period of this history and beyond.

The WFNMC held its second conference in 1994. The location was Pravets, home town of the Bulgarian President and place where through the latter Soviet era many personal computers were made for use in the Soviet bloc. The conference was notable for the attendance of Paul Erdos, who fully participated, including all the excursions social events and bus rides. His presence was highly inspirational, and he even presented the Paul Erdos Awards for the conference. The above picture is typical, an afternoon tea during an excursion, from left Peter Taylor, Marcin Kuczma (Poland), Paul Erdos, Warren Atkins, Emilia Velikova (Bulgaria) and Naida Atkins.

The National Awards Ceremony was held soon after Peter O'Halloran's passing. Sir Gustav Nossal (above) was the Guest of Honour and as a famous Australian scientist he was truly inspirational, particularly for the words he said, as a distinguished research biologist, about the importance of mathematics in science. Later he became the second patron of the AMC and lent his support for the event as such for many years with the same enthusiasm he is known for promoting the importance of science in general.

Entries had continued to rise, and by now were over half a million and as usual there was a high correlation between medallists and IMO team members. These included (some for the last time) William Hawkins, James Lefevre, Andrew Rogers, Akshay Venkatesh, Nigel Tao and New Zealand's James McGowan. Younger aspirants in Norman Do, Justin Ghan and Andrew Cheeseman were appearing on the list. The full list of medals can be found here.

James Lefevre, like other Tasmanians such as William Hart and Gordon Deane, were very much inspired by their tutelage from David Paget. Akshay was a prodigy, youngest in future to get Honours in maths at UWA and later achievements. And Nigel was one of Terry's two brothers. With third brother Trevor to also make the IMO team in 1995, this was to become the first family of three to all represent Australia.

1995: Into Asia

The year started with me attending the Kangourou problems Committee meeting in Paris. We had been very chuffed just a few years before, about 1991, when the French decided to emulate our competition and name it after our best known animal.The competition, with exactly the same format as ours, had spread through several countries in Europe by now and had been renamed the Kangaroo without borders, seemingly allowing for extension beyond. The meeting was held in Lycee Louis le Grand, adjacent to the University of Paris, Sorbonne, apparently France's most academic school. The Principal welcomed us, noting students here had included Lagrange, d'Alembert and Robespierre, even Jacques Chirac, although in the latter case he noted he had not won any of the school's prizes.

The meeting was conducted in French, and I learned a few new words, but overall the procedures were very similar to ours in Australia. I was interviewed for a film, and also made welcome to continue as an honorary member of the committee.

After the meeting I went down to Lyon, where Alain Bouvet, who had become a great friend of Peter O'Halloran and was the head of the teacher training college there, supervised the translation of the AMC paper into French.

Until now, we had flown Singapore medallists, sometimes four or five of them, to Australia in order to receive their medals at our National Award Ceremony. It seemed to me it would be more economical for me to go to Singapore, and maybe get more publicity in that country. But the first step was to get to know who the Singapore people were and set up a local structure.

The AAMT Conference was to be held in Darwin in July. And it was to be a very successful event which the AMT again supported by holding its national and state directors conference there.

Here are New Zealand National Director Gus Gale, left, with Queensland Director Neville Grace.

Here is Challenge Committee member Anna Nakos with Dorothea and Bernhard Neumann. Bernhard took his tent to Darwin and he and Dorothea stayed on camping for a few extra days at Kakadu.

I considered the proximity of Darwin to Singapore sufficiently close that I should extend my travel and go there to call a meeting of representatives of the main schools who were entering by that time. Entries in Singapore at the time were about 5000. The meeting was interesting to me and very successful, with the outcome that Teo Mui Hong, Head of Mathematics at Raffles Institution, agreed to become the first Singapore Director.

The other Asian country with systematic, albeit still small, entries in the AMC was Brunei Darussalam, and I undertook a similar visit there, and one of familiarisation. So I met the local organiser at the University, Dr Faqir Bhatti, a Pakistani, and learned a lot about the local conditions.

After the AMC results were known a number of Singapore medallists were identified, as well as further students from Malaysia and the Philippines. I decided to go ahead with presentations in their countries. The Australian High Commissioner, Mr Ted Delofski, graciously agreed for us to be able to present the medals in a lecture theatre in the beautiful Harry Seidler building which houses the High Commission, and agreed to be the Guest of Honour.

At the event Singapore publishing identity and physicist Willie Yong, Peter Taylor, AMT Manager Sally Bakker and Singapore AMC Director Teo Mui Hong.

I went on to Kuala Lumpur to present the Malaysian medal to Koh Kim Tee. Malaysian and Philippine entries had, as described above, been via 120 free entries from Chong Hwa Independent High School. This very large school, with over 5000 students, was in the Chinese education system, and regularly supplied some members of the Malaysian IMO team. My hope was to convince Malaysians to enter more students, as was happening in Singapore.

After the event, Kim Tee's mother, Kim Tee, Peter Taylor and Chong Hwa's head English teacher Kemmy Tong, who acted as my hostess during the visit.

I was then due to fly on to Manila to present the Philippine medal, but, alas, I arrived at the airport to be told that due to Super-Typhoon Angela in Manila, my flight had been cancelled. I spent the day watching the disaster on CNN until I was able to catch a direct flight home.

The national ceremony in Australia was held in the Westpac Gallery at the Victorian Arts Centre on St Kilda Road. Guest of Honour was the ABC's Dr Karl Kruszelnicki. Our presence in Melbourne was instrumental in one of our most interesting television features, as the Channel 10 breakfast program, hosted by James Valentine, had a very friendly session with some AMC problems, involving recent medallists such as Lawrence Ip.

The medallists included Terry Tao's two brothers, Nigel and Trevor, and New Zealand student James McGowan collected the last of a large haul of medals. Ominously, the list includes for the first time young Year 7 student Geoffrey Chu, who was to go on to become the first student to win all 6 possible medals, and be an IMO Gold Medallist. The full list of medals can be found here.

The Problems Committee had settled in well under the renewed Chairmanship of Warren Atkins, seen centre front with the Canberra-based members. At rear are Bob Bryce (ANU), Martin Ward (ANU), John Carty (Merici College), Peter Taylor, while Robin Thornely (Canberra High School) is at front left and John Munro (UC) is at front right.

The 1995 AMC broke its record again with over 540,000 entries, but entry numbers had finally reached their capacity and numbers were to plateau. In fact industrial action by teachers in several states was to be the main reason for the first decline in 1996.

1996

The year 1996 opened in March when we hosted a visit by teachers from Hwa Chong Institution, one of the leading Singapore schools.

We organised a number of visits by the group to Canberra schools first, and then a similar visit in Melbourne. Here is the group visiting Cotter Dam in Canberra. Second left is Dr Hon Chiew Weng, leader of the party and later to become Principal, while in centre is Jasmine Tey, Head of Mathematics, who was later to serve a term as Singapore national AMC Director. Lois is at the rear, while at right rear is our son Gregory, who was later to join the AMC Problems Committee for Primary Schools.

In July Michael Evans and I were in Singapore and visited Raffles Institution. From left Michael, Peter, Raffles Principal Mr Tan Tiek Kwee and Head of Mathematics Teo Mui Hong, national AMC Director. Michael was Head of Mathematics at Scotch College in Melbourne, which has an exchange arrangement with Raffles.

Later in July was held ICME-8 in Seville, and a few AMC people attended. It was a good conference, but very hot, with street thermometers at times showing temperatures of up to 54 degrees. WFNMC held meetings, as had become the norm, and a few Awards were presented. A new Constitution was agreed, for the first time, with Canadian Ron Dunkley as President, and I was elected Senior Vice President.

Asia was growing, and I visited Philippines, Brunei Darussalam and Singapore.

I had developed a strong friendship with Brunei's Permanent Head of Education, Dato Ali Hashim, which extended for several years, even after he had retired from the position. He gave very strong support to the AMC in the country.

The National Ceremony for Australia was held in Canberra at the Academy of Science, with Guest of Honour the Governor General Sir William Deane. Medallists included several who were to be in Australia's 1997 "Dream Team" at IMO, including Norman Do, Justin Ghan and Stephen Farrar. Geoffrey Chu won his second of six Medals, while Peter McNamara made a first appearance from Year 7, to go on and become the second student to win six medals, and the only Australian in this history to win two IMO Gold Medals.

The full list of medals can be found here.

1997

One of the BH Neumann Awards presented this year was one in May to Brother Kevin Friel, one of the stalwarts of the Problems Committee.

He is shown here with Bernhard Neumann, Warren Atkins and at rear Jack Waterford. Jack, Editor of the Canberra Times and notable Canberra citizen, was a student of Brother Kevin at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, Sydney, and Brother Kevin became one of Jack's lifelong friends.

Asia continued to grow and I visited there in October Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Singapore and Malaysia.

This was also the year of the smoke haze in South East Asia, and visibility in Singapore and Malaysia was only a few metres, as may be evidenced in the above photo, taken from the top of the Stamford Hotel (at the time tallest building in Singapore), in which AMT Manager Sally Bakker (right) and I are with Singapore National AMC Director Teo Mui Hong and her husband Sam Tan, who was later to hold senior positions in the Singapore Parliament, including Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister.

This was also the first year in which a medal was won in Brunei Darussalam, and there was also another medal in India.

The National Ceremony for Australia was held at a function at Government House, Sydney, where the Guest of Honour was the Governor of New South Wales, The Hon Gordon Samuels AC. Justin Ghan of the very successful 1997 IMO team won a medal and the growing internationalisation was shown by medals won in Britain and Ireland. The British medal was won by Rebecca Palmer, who was also an IMO Bronze Medallist, and was entered because she had an Australian teacher. The Irish medal, won in Cork, resulted in a convoy of vehicles travelling to Dublin, where the medal was presented by the Australian Ambassador.

There was also Fijian Medal, although this was won by an Australian, Tracy Slatyer, who is the grand daughter of Australia's first Chief Scientist, Ralph Slatyer. She was later to return to Canberra and whereas she ultimately was a member of an Australian Biology Olympiad team, her younger brother Harry was to become a member of the Informatics team.

The AMF had its usual role at the AAMT Biennial Conference in Melbourne, hosted by RMIT University in July.

The full list of medals can be found here.

1998

In February the AMT moved office. This was a major event, and the new office was to last through the time of this history.

The office in the past had been organised by AMF. The latest version of the office had been the caretakers' cottage at the University, with considerable extension paid for by AMF. The AMF had assumed it would have ongoing occupancy. Vice Chancellor and Board Chairman Don Aitkin was noted for his interest in the University's buildings and architecture. He had masterminded the underground delivery access to the library being converted into a block of pleasant shops and cafes. He had converted the boiler house into the University's largest lecture theatre and won national awards for both. He had also established links with Parliament House architect Aldo Giurgolo, partner of the New York firm Mitchell, Giurgolo and Thorpe, and who had made Canberra his home. Mr Giurgolo designed two beautiful new buildings on campus, Building 11, the Engineering Building, where I worked, and Building 12, the Nursing Studies Building.

Two things happened. Building and Sites wanted the area occupied by the Trust. And Don had seen an opportunity too good to miss. The Wang factory on the other side of Haydon Drive had closed due to Wang being taken over by DECand it was for sale for a song. Don arranged to buy this, do it up and move major non-teaching components of the University into the refurbished building.

The University wanted to charge commercial rent, however, a departure from the AMT's past building occupying history, and which caused AMT opposition. Don had a conflict of interest and allowed the matter to be resolved between other AMT personnel and senior management. Legal advice was also obtained. In the end a compromise was reached, based on the legal advice that a Trustee could not make a commercial profit out of its Trust. The money which the Trust had put into the cottage was returned and a neutral version of rent was agreed, based on what the University would have made with 24 hour call.

Above, on moving day are from left Renzo Gobbin, IT Manager, Sally Bakker, AMT Manager, Andrei Storozhev, mathematics editor, and my personal assistant Clarice McLean.

In April I was invited to Taiwan to give a plenary lecture at a conference on assessment. Many of the people running the conference were involved in enrichment activities. I had known Mr Sun Wen-Hsien since the 1996 ICME Conference in Seville, and this was my first time in Taiwan. Mr Sun and I visited some schools also to do some enrichment activity.

Above is a fore-runner of what was to come of the coming decade and a half, with Mr Sun and I arriving at Chien Kuo school, the top academic school in the country, to do enrichment work. In the coming years this would develop into closer ties, with Taiwan participating in the Australian Mathematics Competition.

In July WFNMC held its third Conference, this one in China, in the southern city of Zhong Shan, birth place of the revolutionary leader Sun Yat Sen. This was a very popular event. The IMO had just been held in Taiwan, and many of the IMO Leaders attended the Conference. The AMT had a strong delegation, but the largest was a delegation of 12 from the University of Waterloo in Canada.

I am shown at the conference with Andy Liu (University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada) left and Academician Petar Kenderov (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) right. Andy is one of the world's greatest problem solvers, while Petar was the architect of very close ties which had emerged between us and our Bulgarian counterparts since 1988.

In the photo above I am wearing a Melbourne T Shirt. An outcome of the Conference was that we were given the right to host the next WFNMC Conference in Melbourne in 2002.

The National Awards Ceremony was held for just the second time in Adelaide, and for the first time at Government House. Guest of Honour was the Governor of South Australia, Sir Eric Neil AC CVO.

There was as usual a very high correlation between medallists in the AMC and present and future IMO team members, in Australia and elsewhere, emphasising the value of the AMC as an identifier of talent. For example, from Australia alone, in the Junior were future Olympians in Andrew Kwok and Marshall Ma. In the Intermediate were future Gold Medallists in Geoffrey Chu and Peter McNamara and Silver Medallist Thomas Sewell. In the Senior were five current IMO team members in Stephen Farrar (Gold), Andrew Cheeseman, Justin Ghan and Hiroshi Miyazaki (all Silver) and Kevin Sun (Bronze).

Sir Eric and Lady Neil are at the right, Bernhard Neumann is at front left. Andrew Cheeseman is seated next to Bernhard and Geoffrey is seated in the middle front, while Thomas is a couple of students further to the right. Stephen and Justin are in the photo in the back row.

The full list of medals can be found here.

1999

The AMF had its usual role at the AAMT Biennial Conference in Adelaide, hosted by the University of Adelaide in January.

There was the usual biennial meeting of the AMC State and National Directors, who are pictured above. From left are Peter Taylor, Russell Coad (Western Australia), Warren Atkins (Problems Committee Chairman), Giovanna Vardaro (South Australia), Steve Thornton (AMT Director of the Graduate Diploma program for teachers), Nelly Mok (Northern Territory), Gus Gale (New Zealand), Teo Mui Hong (Singapore), Bob Thompson (AMF Treasurer), Bill Akhurst (New South Wales), Assa Raass (Tonga), Neville Grace (Queensland), Pierre-Olivier Legrand (French Polynesia), Alex Feeger (Papua New Guinea), Satish Kumar (Fiji), Sally Bakker (AMT Manager), Bruce Henry (Victoria), Maurice Starck (New Caledonia), Faqir Bhatti (Brunei Darussalam), Howard Reeves (Tasmania).

The University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, was founded as late as 1957, but quickly established itself as one of the strongest Universities in Mathematics in North America, and also in Science, Engineering and technology generally. One of its founding Mathematics Professors, Ralph Stanton, a combinatorialist, had a large influence on the mathematics developments, making strong appointments and encouraging the use of competitions for recruitment. The Waterloo competitions, which eventually adopted a national name, inspired Peter O'Halloran and led to a strong relationship between them and us. I alone have been there several times. Waterloo had a compulsory retiring age and Ralph wanted to continue a full-time career, so he left for Winnipeg, where he was able to work past the age of 80. He and his colleague Ernest A. Ruet d'Auteuil regularly visited Australia, mainly to work with Anne Street in Queensland, but he would also visit us in Canberra.

One of these visits took place in March and the above photo recalls the visit. From left Ralph Stanton, Professor John Burns, first treasurer of AMOC, Bernhard Neumann, Ernest A. Ruet d'Auteuil and Professor Joe Gani, ANU and earlier Chief of the CSIRO Division of Mathematics and Statistics.

The AMC Problems Committee continued through the remainder of this history to meet in May, and the tradition continued of inviting one or two international problem composers to continue to provide a fresh outlook. In 1999 the visitors were Maurice Starck (New Caledonia, centre) and Robert Geretschlaeger (Austria).

In September I was invited for the first time to South Korea, to give a plenary paper at a national conference of mathematics teachers. Tony Gardiner, of the University of Birmingham, UK, was also invited. The photo above shows me and Tony near the centre. On the right is significant Korean mathematics educator Professor Cho Sung-Je. He led the IMO organisation in the country for many years, and was the Chair of ICME-12 later in 2012.

In October Bernhard Neumann turned 90. A dinner was held to celebrate the occasion in the Great Hall of University House, ANU, Canberra, and Don Aitkin is shown presenting Bernhard with a silver tray of the type he had presented to winners of the BH Neumann Award.

The full list of the 1999 medals can be found here. The national award ceremony was held in Brisbane for the second time, again at Government House, and again a number of IMO students including Gold Medallists Geoffrey Chu and Peter McNamara were among the winners..