Paloma Noyola, Wired Magazine's 'Next Steve Jobs' Competes in National Calculus Competition

Paloma Noyola, the 12-year-old girl that Wired Magazine named the "next Steve Jobs' in last month's issue, will participate in calculus competition in Mexico City. The student from Matamoros in Tamaulipas will compete in the Fifth National Alberto Coto Calculus Competition, which will take place next Monday at the Mexico City campus of the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Paloma, who achieved the highest result in the 2012 Enlace Mathematics test will compete agains 420 students with the highest grade-point averages from across Mexico.

Paloma Noyola is a student at José Urbina López Primary School in Matamors Tamaulipas. The tiny school sits near a trash dump, and, up until last year, was achieving poor results for its students. That all changed with the remarkable, ground-breaking teaching methodology of Paloma's teacher Sergio Juarez Correa. Inspired by the work of researchers like Sugat Mitra, Correa came up with new methods of teaching for his class. He placed the students in small groups, allowing them to learn from each other as much as they learnt from Correa himself. He inspired the students to engage with their own curiosity. The results were inspiring: Paloma scored first place in math and third place in Spanish on a national test in 2012.