Curro Online Learners Shine at International Genius Olympiad

28 June 2023

Two Curro Online learners from Postmasburg, Giancarlo and Santiné van der Merwe were invited to present their science projects at the 2023 Genius Olympiad between 12 and 16 June 2023. The 2023 Genius Olympiad is an International High School Environment Project Olympiad held at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, USA.

Their journey to the Genius Olympiad started at the Imbewu Science Foundation’s 2022 South African Youth Engineering and Science Symposium (SAYESS) in Gauteng in December. It is here at the SAYESS that their respective science projects received gold medals, which led them to be invited to the Genius Olympiad.

Giancarlo investigated how “New Carbon Capture Technology Can Reduce the Impact of Carbon Dioxide on Our Planet” and Santiné looked at “A Device to Track Fishing Gear to Reduce Losses of Marine Life”. Their phenomenal science projects won them silver medals and $20 000 in renewable scholarships to RIT.

The 2023 Genius Olympiad saw a total of 1453 projects from 31 US states and 63 countries with only 726 finalists. Project submissions must score more than 3,5 out of 5 (70%) from multiple reviewers to be selected as finalists. A total of 349 Science projects were selected as finalists out of 672 submissions. Other categories participating at the Olympiad included art, short film, creative writing, robotics, music, and business projects with debating and coding starting next year. After judge interviews, projects scores were placed in the following groups to achieve medals or mentions:

- Winners & Top 10%: Gold Medals

- Next 20%: Silver Medals

- Next 20%: Bronze Medals

- Next 20%: Honourable Mention

- Last 30%: Participation

This was a great achievement for Giancarlo and Santiné, only to be selected as finalists achieving more than 70% in the preliminary reviews and still ending in the top 15% of all submissions to the 2023 Genius Olympiad.