2021: Year at a Glance

2021 Challenge Problem

Defeating the Digital Divide: Internet Costs, Needs, and Optimal Planning

hands holding table, screen reads "CONNECT"
Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

While the “digital divide” has been around for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought it sharply into focus, as many people have seen their work, school, healthcare, grocery shopping, and socializing migrate to a virtual experience—happening within the home, using digital devices. Ensuring that everyone (particularly those in rural and low-income areas) has sufficient access to high-speed internet is a technical, logistical, and economic challenge.

It is not clear which among the many ways to access the internet (e.g., cable, fiber-optic lines, satellites, mobile broadband) can best solve the connectivity issues experienced by people in different types of households and regions. In this year’s problem students were tasked to model cost, needs assessment, and placement of towers for maximizing access to the internet.  Photo credit: Photo by Nastya Dulhiier on Unsplash.

M3 Challenge 2021 Champion

Livingston High School (Team #14817), Livingston, New Jersey

Coach: Cheryl Coursen

Students: Aditya Desai, Sidhant Srivastava, Leo Stepanewk, Edward Wang, Charles Yu


Winning Solutions

See where the winning teams are from and how they rose to the Challenge!

Judge Commentary

A judge’s thoughts on this year’s submissions and modeling in general.

Media Page

Pictures and video from the Final Event, press releases, and more.