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ICM 2018 concludes with an invitation to the next meeting.

After nine days of exchanging experiences and knowledge, the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM 2018), which brought together 3,018 participants from 114 countries at Riocentro, came to an end this Thursday (9) looking to the future. At the closing ceremony, the director-general of IMPA and president of ICM 2018, Marcelo Viana, called to the stage the organizers of the next meeting, in St. Petersburg (Russia), in 2022.

Stanislav Smirnov and Andrei Okounkov, both Fields Medal recipients, presented a short film about the city of 5 million inhabitants and urged their colleagues to participate in another edition of the congress.

"ICM 2018 is coming to an end, but the ICM tradition continues," said Marcelo Viana.

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St. Petersburg, Russia, will host ICM 2022.
Vincent Lafforgue concludes the ICM 2018 plenary session cycle.

The Director-General of IMPA presented impressive figures. ICM 2018 involved 10,506 people, including the public, congress participants, support staff, and volunteers, who received special thanks.

“They made what was quite difficult seem easy,” praised the president of the first ICM held in the Southern Hemisphere. The meeting featured 910 lectures and 21 plenary presentations, given by this year's award-winning mathematicians and researchers selected by an international committee.

During the ceremony, the president of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), Shigefumi Mori, presented the Leelavati Prize to Professor Ali Nesin, creator of the Mathematics Village, an alternative learning space, free from the rigor of traditional classrooms, built in 2007 in rural Turkey. Nesin received the honor alongside Sevan Nisanyan, his partner in the conception, construction, and implementation of the village.

Mori praised Marcelo Viana's work leading the organization of ICM 2018 and highlighted the fact that such a large-scale event fostered such a welcoming atmosphere. "The spirit of collaboration among all those involved is a great hallmark of ICM," he stated.