Sándor Róka, Hungary

Sándor Róka’s main accomplishment is the creation of Abacus, a problem-solving journal for ages 10-14. Knowing that Hungary’s KöMaL made Hungary a world-power in mathematics, he wanted to provide a journal of similar value for younger students. And he did so. Today Abacus is just as popular as KöMaL both among the students and the teachers are enthusiastic about it too. Moreover, its problems are used for an international competition too quiet successfully. While there was talk about the need for such a publication earlier, nothing was done until 1990, when Sándor started a mathematics competition by mail for students of age 10-14 in the District of Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg. He and his wife, who is an award-winning physics teacher, managed to squeeze 8 rounds of different problems for the different grades into the schoolyear, giving the students 20 days for submitting solutions. Advertising the program, grading the papers, mailing the solutions, as well as the prizes at the end of the year, as well as the typing, the duplication and frequent trips to the post office were tiresome, and they also had to search for funding, since they planned to expand the program the following year. Which they did, handling 30 students in the first year, and 140, 800 and 500 during the next 3 years. In the meantime, the size of the journal also grew from 44 pages per issue, and the number of different columns and competitions also mushroomed to include chess problems, cryptologic and logic problems puzzles like sudoku and problems in stated in English. He also managed to find teachers with expertise in those areas and enough funding to stay afloat, but he knew all along that his beloved Abacus needs to be continued under the auspices of Hungary’s mathematical society, the Bolyai Mathematical Society, and the timing was perfect for it to take over: 1994 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of KöMaL.