Indian-American high schooler wins International Geography Bee World Championship

Indian-American high school student Avi Goel has won the world championship at the International Geography Bee’s junior varsity division held in Berlin, Germany, last month.

Avi, 14, a tenth grader at Silver Creek High School in Evergreen, San Jose, CA, won a gold medal in seven out of the 10 medal events, and a silver medal in two of the events, topping the overall medals table.

He also bagged the top spot in all the three events counting towards the world championship title: The International Geography Exam, the International Geography Showdown, and the International Geography Bee.

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The competition took place from July 11-18, 2018, and brought together over 100 of the world’s top geography students to vie for the world championship title in the subject.

“After these awards, I want to move on to progress in other subject areas such as math and computer science as these are my desired areas to study in college. The lion’s share of my rationale for winning such things stems back to personal pride and desire although I hope to use them, to some extent, to hopefully embellish my college applications if possible,” Avi told PTI.

“With this international win, his long-time passion has been fulfilled and we are very proud of his hard work and dedication,” proud parents Komal & Rajiv Goel said.

The International Geography Bee featured exams, quiz rounds, and other competitions formats testing all aspects of geographic knowledge from historical geography, to physical geography and climatology etc.

The competition was held by International Academic Competitions, a worldwide organization that runs academic competitions across the world, including the newly formed International Geography Bee.

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Avi has a long history of competing in geography competitions. In 2017, in Arlington, Virginia, he won the national championships of the United States Geography Olympiad junior varsity division despite being a middle schooler at the time. He has been competing in geography competitions throughout middle school, winning 2^nd in the state of California in the 6^th grade.

George Bernstein, CEO, Nobel Learning Communities Inc congratulated Avi who “is an excellent example for us to share with the next generation of students”.