What about trying to use the existing infrastructure in Russia, e.g.
Donating to school libraries of math magnet schools (starting with “usual suspects” of 57, 2, 43 in Moscow, 239 in St Petersburg, etc, and then going down the list)?
Contacting a competition organizers (e.g. for тургор - турнир городов which tends to have a higher diversity of participants compared to the Olympiad system) and coordinating to use the books as prises for finalists?
Besides not having to reinvent the wheel, kids might be more open to the ideas if the book comes from a local, more readily trusted party.
Some of these schools should have the book in their libraries. There are also risks with some of them, as the current leadership installed by the gov might get triggered if they open and read the books (even though they probably won’t).
It’s also better to give the books directly to students, because then we get to have their contact details.
I’m not sure how many of the kids studying there know the book exists, but the percentage should be fairly high at this point.
Do you think the books being in local libraries increases how open people are to the ideas? My intuition is that the quotes on гпмрм.рф/olymp should do a lot more in that direction. Do you have a sense that it wouldn’t be perceived as an average fantasy-with-science book?
We’re currently giving out the books to participants of summer conference of the maths cities tournament — do you think it might be valuable to add cities tournament winners to the list? Are there many people who would qualify, but didn’t otherwise win a prize in the national math olympiad?
Getting to the national math Olympiad requires access to regional Olympiad first, then being able to travel. Smart kids from “middle of nowhere” places—exactly to the kinds of kids you want to reach—are more likely to participate in the cities tournament. I wonder whether kids who were eligible for the summer camp, but did not make it there are more of your target audience than those who participated in the camp.
P.S. my knowledge of this is primarily based on how things were ~35 years ago, so I could be completely off.
What about trying to use the existing infrastructure in Russia, e.g.
Donating to school libraries of math magnet schools (starting with “usual suspects” of 57, 2, 43 in Moscow, 239 in St Petersburg, etc, and then going down the list)?
Contacting a competition organizers (e.g. for тургор - турнир городов which tends to have a higher diversity of participants compared to the Olympiad system) and coordinating to use the books as prises for finalists?
Besides not having to reinvent the wheel, kids might be more open to the ideas if the book comes from a local, more readily trusted party.
Some of these schools should have the book in their libraries. There are also risks with some of them, as the current leadership installed by the gov might get triggered if they open and read the books (even though they probably won’t).
It’s also better to give the books directly to students, because then we get to have their contact details.
I’m not sure how many of the kids studying there know the book exists, but the percentage should be fairly high at this point.
Do you think the books being in local libraries increases how open people are to the ideas? My intuition is that the quotes on гпмрм.рф/olymp should do a lot more in that direction. Do you have a sense that it wouldn’t be perceived as an average fantasy-with-science book?
We’re currently giving out the books to participants of summer conference of the maths cities tournament — do you think it might be valuable to add cities tournament winners to the list? Are there many people who would qualify, but didn’t otherwise win a prize in the national math olympiad?
Getting to the national math Olympiad requires access to regional Olympiad first, then being able to travel. Smart kids from “middle of nowhere” places—exactly to the kinds of kids you want to reach—are more likely to participate in the cities tournament. I wonder whether kids who were eligible for the summer camp, but did not make it there are more of your target audience than those who participated in the camp.
P.S. my knowledge of this is primarily based on how things were ~35 years ago, so I could be completely off.
I think travel and accommodation for the winners of regional olympiads to the national one is provided by the olympiad organizers.