The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is the World Championship Mathematics Competition for High School students and is held annually in a different country. The first IMO was held in 1959 in Romania, with 7 countries participating. It has gradually expanded to over 100 countries from 5 continents. The IMO Advisory Board ensures that the competition takes place each year and that each host country observes the regulations and traditions of the IMO.

The founding director of Math Zoom Academy, Dr. Kevin Wang, is a former International Math Olympian representing the China Team, one of the top performing teams in the international contest.

The International Mathematical Olympiad – IMO is a two day math competition held each summer. Participating countries send teams of up to six students. Each day participants take a 4.5 hour, 3 question essay exam. The participating countries trade off in hosting the event, which in its entirety usually lasts 10- 14 days. In 2010, the IMO will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan. The IMO is a rigorous two day competition, including problems that would challenge most professional mathematicians. The content ranges from extremely difficult pre-calculus problems to problems on branches of mathematics not conventionally covered at school and often not at university level either, such as projective and complex geometry, functional equations and well-grounded number theory, of which extensive knowledge of theorems is required. Calculus, though allowed in solutions, is never required, as there is a principle at play that anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics should understand the problems, even if the solutions require a great deal more knowledge. Supporters of this principle claim that this allows more universality and creates an incentive to find elegant, deceptively simple-looking problems which nevertheless require a certain level of ingenuity.