Go Get Gold: TOFI, Indonesian physics nobel laurates

Indonesia’s TOFI has oftentimes triumphs the International Physics Olympics (IPhO). TOFI - The Indonesian Physics Olympiad Team is a National Team consists of 5 - 8 High School Students compete each year for the Physics Olympiad.

…let’s get one thing straight because as it might be a name of a team, TOFI is also an NGO. The NGO is pioneered by Yohanes Surya, Agus Ananda, Roy Sembel and Joko Saputro thirteen years ago. But the most important of all, this NGO has realized the importance of PR in delivering their mission to make physics as a fun and easy subject.

But, according to Maverick PR team who met TOFI’s PR recently, have any one of us known how these gifted teens managed participate in such Olympics in the first place?

Working together with the ministry of Education TOFI conducted selection processes in much larger scale spanning across 27 provinces in Indonesia. Around 1400 students took part in the preliminary test organized in October. Subsequently 24 students were selected. They received several books and study materials several months before the next qualifying round. Afterwards they were invited in Febuary to take the next qualifying exam in Jakarta. The top 6 students were picked from the result.

However, TOFI was neither started in Jakarta nor in any place in Indonesia, but at the college of William and Mary, Virginia USA in 1992.

Yohanes Surya and Agus Ananda, both were physics graduate students at the college took the initiative to invite a team from Indonesia to participate in the 24th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) that would be hosted at the college. Prof. Hans Von Bayer, the Olympiad coordinator kindly allowed us to participate. We also received kin assistance from the Department of Physics of the University of Indonesia, our alma mater in Jakarta to conduct a long distance selection process. About 75 students took part in the qualifying examination and mostly came from Java, the main island in Indonesia.

We managed to get the best five students and invited them to Williamsburg, Virginia two months earlier to have an intensive training program and to get acquainted with academic environment in US. Due to lack of sponsors, some of themn had to pay their own tickets to US. Agus Ananda and Yohanes Surya tutored them voluntarily and shared their meal every day to minimize the cost. The students stayed together in a nearby apartment and came over to our apartment or to campus to have their training sessions. It seemed to be a formidable task at the first time but we were convinced that this would be a very rewarding experience. Two hundreds top students from 41 countries took part in the 1993 olympiad and we were proud with our students as they worked real hard and attempted solving many physics problems beyond what were expected from them.

Caption: APhO IV, April 20 - April 29, 2003 Salaya - Thailand - All Star Winner

In long run, I have become more convinced that Indonesia will get Physics Nobel Laurates. Go ahead TOFI, we are proud of you!

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