
Help send Bosnian talents to IPhO!
In the past 22 years, Bosnian high-school students have been competing in International Physics Olympiads (IPhO) and have won 5 silver medals, 7 bronze medals and 26 honorable mentions so far (photos here) - with their most recent success being 1 bronze medal and 3 honorable mentions at the European Physics Olympiad held in Moscow last May (photo above). Over time, these young talents have now become successful students, engineers and scientists at top world institutes and universities, such as CERN, MIT, University College London, ETH Zurich, TU Munich and many more worldwide. However, despite their great results support from the authorities/government is always only partial, leaving our students to often worry if they will even get to the Olympiad after months of preparation and hard work.
Who?
This year´s IPhO will be held from July 21st to 29th in Lisabon, Portugal, and our smart Olympians - the five best young physicists in Bosnia and Herzegovina - are Admir Papić, Davor Bokan, Nola Šegalo, Muhamed Sokolović and Irfan Durmić, together with team leaders Senad Isaković (IPhO 2017 leader, former contestant) and Benjamin Fetić (president of Bosnian Physical Society, PhD and TA at University of Sarajevo). They are all busy now with the final theoretical and experimental preparations at Dept. of Physics at University of Sarajevo, but do not worry, they will be listening to what you have to say and will have time to thank you :) Also make sure to check below for other activities of our smart students!
What?
Total expenses for participation fees and return flights are 8700 CHF / 14000 BAM (for 7 team members) and unfortunately the cantonal and municipal authorities have provided the Bosnian Physical Society with only 3620 CHF / 5800 BAM, in spite of their recent promises suggesting otherwise. Among private companies, only Medena Commerce, a metal machining and manufacturing company from Tešanj has decided to support us, and we would like to thank the for their help so far, and among the authorities only the Mayor of Country Sarajevo Center (Opština Centar Sarajevo) has decided to fully support a student coming from his county with 1240 CHF / 2000 BAM. As it is, this still leaves us with 3660 CHF / 5900 BAM which we need to raise by mid-July if all of our students are to participate in IPhO (participation fees have to paid at latest by 21st of July).
However, we do not intend on giving up on our students - and with the hope that good people around Bosnia and Herzegovina and worldwide will recognize the importance of supporting our youth, we are asking you to help us in our journey to the International Physics Olympiad. Many thanks in advance to everyone!
What do we offer in return?
Giving our best during the preparations and the Olympiad itself - and the following depending on the amount of your donation (in CHF):
up to 20 - a personal "thank you" in a private message
20 to 200 - a public "thank you" message on our campaign site
200 to 500 - a personal "thank you" video from our students
above 500 - a personal "thank you" meeting with our team (date and time would be discussed on case-by-case basis)
And of course, everyone supporting us will get a signed postcard from Lisbon :D
What do the students do when not doing physics competitions?
Well, other scientific competitions :D For example, this year Admir, Nola, Muhamed and other talented students ("Aμsing Twins" team) participated in the "CERN Beamline for Schools" (BL4S) competition, where they had to propose a both interesting and scientifically meaningful and useful experiment to be conducted in CERN - you can see their interesting proposal in the video below. While their proposal ended up slightly short of victory, they were shortlisted into top 30 teams and will receive their own personal Cosmic Ray detector from CERN - the same detector which was recently used to find a hidden chamber in an Egyptian pyramid :D Oh, and they were the first ever Bosnian team to compete in CERN BL4S, so we will hopefully see even better results in the following years.
And to fully answer the question - yes, there are other things besides physics and science or students do. For example, Admir and Davor, who won first and second place at the Bosnian Physics Olympiad, regularly "hit" the gym and they have also found time to compete in many other competitions (German, Math, etc). All of our students are also very gifted tutors and are eager to share to their knowledge - some of them are already working with younger talented students at their schools. Similarly, Irfan enjoys doing a lot of volunteer work - read more about his activities here. The bottom line is, you are not supporting "just" a bunch of young physicists, but beautiful young minds who work to build a better future for themselves and their community.
IMPORTANT NOTICE ON DONATIONS:
Since Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be registered in GoFundMe, we had to register this donation campaign in Switzerland and use for donations the personal bank account of Selver Pepić - our bronze medalist from 2012, master student and excellence scholar at ETH Zurich, and a long-time trainer and leader of our Olympic teams. After the end of this fundraising, the total amount will be transfered to the Bosnian Physics Society.
If it´s preferred/possible for you, you can also directly donate to the Bosnian Physical Society using the payment details provided here at the end (Raiffeisen Bank BiH, IBAN BA391610000023170013). For any questions regarding your donation feel free to contact us at any time, we are here to help you :)
More info:
Official website of IPhO 2018, Lisabon Portugal: http://ipho2018.pt/
Offical website of Bosnian Physical Society: http://dfubih.com.ba/
Offical Facebook page of Bosnian Physical Society:
https://www.facebook.com/dfubih
Results of Bosnia and Herzegovina at IPhO until now: http://ipho-unofficial.org/countries/BIH/
For anything else you want to know, just ask us!