Equation
The idea was an instant hit, attracting major sponsors and
raising $25,000 in its first year. Now there are operations in
over 100 Canadian cities raising over $1.3 million every year
for youth programs and sports teams.
De Koninck’s forays into math outreach started with
interviews on mathematics related subjects for several
television and radio networks.
Math outreach is different from math education, De Koninck
says.
“In math education, you have the people in the room already;
for math outreach, they’re not there yet. You have to go
get them. There’s a lot of people that never hear about
mathematics because they never get the right messenger.”
For many, the right messenger was De Koninck himself. In
1999, he was giving a talk about prime numbers at Cegep
(a publicly funded pre‑university college in the province of
Quebec’s education system), when he was noticed by a
television crew who were looking for someone to host a new
popular mathematics show called “C’est mathématique!” De
Koninck initially refused, but was urged by his colleagues to
change his mind.
De Koninck at
19 years old
Its mission
is to arouse
and reinforce
the interest
of young
people for
mathematics
and demystify
mathematics for the
population at large.
SMAC activities
include Show Math,
an educational show
about mathematics
aimed at the
general public, and
MathAmaze/Math
en jeu, a free online
mathematical
game developed in
De Koninck coaching swimming
collaboration with Mitacs.
In the game, you move through
a maze by answering math questions that are tailored in
difficulty according to your level.
The show ran for two seasons on the Z Network and was
later purchased by the TFO Network (Télévision française
de l’Ontario/Ontario French Television) where they continue
to be aired each Fall. College professors would call De
Koninck asking for copies of the tapes. “The kids are in front of their computers all the time now, so
let’s go where they are,” he explains.
“This was really the starting point. I noticed that I could do
outreach and it made an impact.” “We need [their] brightness and energy to solve tomorrow’s
problems and when you’re very passionate you do inf