Registration is open for the Junior Mental Calculation World Championship 2023!
The event will be held on the 30th September–3rd October 2023 in Bielefeld (Germany). The main competition and the prize ceremony will be on October 2nd, so most people will leave on the morning of the 3rd.
Since 2008 this international championship in mental calculation has taken place. Caroline Merkel and the team welcome all young people around the globe aged up to 19 to participate and challenge their skills.
I attended the 2018, 2019 and 2022 events as an official trainer. Each event was a friendly and enjoyable weekend with 50+ participants from many countries, including Bulgaria, Algeria and India. There was additionally an online event in 2020.
Applications to Join
Please visit its official website for full details and future updates about the competition. Applications are accepted until 30th May 2023—you can read here the instructions for how to apply. Places are limited!
Note: please do not contact me (Daniel Timms) about applications—please follow the instructions above and speak with Caroline Merkel 🙂 Any information from the official website supersedes any information on this page.
Event Details & Preparation
The aim of the event is to share knowledge and methods with the participants. To facilitate this, the event includes free training the days before to prepare the students for the competition. The training will be coordinated by a small team of established international experts in mental calculation such as Daniel Timms (myself), Willem Bouman, George Lane, and others.
Entrants will compete in their age category:
- under 12 years
- under 15 years
- under 20 years
The competition will be a 2-hour written exam, where participants must not write down anything except the answers! Here are some resources to help students prepare:
- Specific resources for JMCWC 2022. There might be updates later for JMCWC 2023.
- Official JMCWC website page that lists the types of question that appear in the event.
- Pegasus Excel software that is used for creating the competition questions.
- Resources page for mental calculation training in general.
If you’re interested in mental calculation and born after 2003-Oct-02, or you’re a parent/trainer of someone who is, I hope to see you there in Germany this October!
Photo credit: Andreas Mohn Foundation, who have kindly sponsored this event in recent years