Mordkovich & Poomkudy Win APO 2015 H.S. Philosophy Essay Writing Contest

Congratulations to First Place Writers Elizabeth (Lisa) Mordkovich from Dwight-Englewood School in NJ, and to Jeffrey Poomkudy from The Wheatley School in NY. In May, these two young philosophers will travel with the USA Delegation to Tartu, Estonia for the International Philosophy Olympiad (IPO) 2015.

Lisa wrote her winning essay in Spanish. Jeffrey wrote his in French. The 9^th annual American Philosophy Olympiad, APO IX 2015, will now be represented internationally by Lisa and Jeffrey in Tartu, Estonia along with national essay winners from 40 other countries. All representatives are Secondary School students in their respective countries. They come together for five days in May 2015 to meet, talk, share, sight see, and write philosophical essays for four hours all together at the essay writing venue at the Tartu Vocational Education Centre.

We, the committee members of the APO, want to extend our sincere thanks to all students who have submitted essays in French or Spanish -- there were no APO essays written in German this year.* Thank you for participating in the 2015 APO H.S. Philosophy Essay Writing Contest. There have been so many interesting essays to read and evaluate this year that it has been a very difficult task for our committee to make our final decision on the top two essays. Nevertheless, a panel of teachers and professors from two different institutions have made their decisions.

The results of the APO IX 2015 are two GOLD, one SILVER, and one BRONZE level winners. In addition   there were seven Honorable Mention writers. Both the Honorable Mention and Participant certificates will be sent to all young philosophers who have submitted their essays to the APO this year.

          GOLD                       SILVER                     BRONZE                      Honorable Mention

Elizabeth Mordkovich            Ethan Czerniecki           Joon Ho Kim                      Michelle Cirillo          

Jeffrey Poomkudy                                                                                           Paulo Frazao

                                                                                                                    Madhumitha Krishnan

                                                                                                                    Kesavan Kushalnagar

                                                                                                                    Sharon Lin

                                                                                                                    James Liu

                                                                                                                    Anthony Tokarz

                                                                                                           

The USA participated in the IPO for four non-continuous years between 1999 and 2003. After a hiatus of almost ten years, this is the fifth year of continuous participation. The American Philosophical Association is the sponsor of APO IX. The IPO, of which APO is a part, is sponsored by both UNESCO and FISP (The International Federation of Philosophical Societies).

For a good idea of what the IPO is and how it works, I offer you two links to search. 

http://www.philosophy-olympiad.org/

http://www.ipo2015.ee/

The first link includes the topics from past competitions. This will give you a good idea of the types of questions students will be asked to write about in Tartu this year. Also, in this website, you can find the winning essays from IPO 2014. Read one of them to see the type of writing that is highly valued in this competition. The second link is for this year's event. Have fun with them and watch for news and photos from Tartu coming up at the end of May. By the way, our winning papers are to be published here in upcoming blog posts.

We look forward to your comments! 

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*The official languages of the IPO are English, French, German, and Spanish. One may not write an essay in one's own native or national language at the IPO competition. Therefore, the official languages of the APO are French, German, and Spanish.