Seven-year-old Montrealer crowned grand champion at international math competition

Seven-year-old Montrealer Bruce Arthur Chang, from Westmount, loves math and solving equations.

CityNews first spoke to him last June after he was crowned the youngest mental math grand champion of Canada at the UCMAS (Universal Concept of Mental Arithmetic System) National Competition.

In December 2024, he competed in the international competition in India, where he was crowned the youngest grand champion of the world. He was among more than 6,000 competitors representing over 30 countries.

Bruce and his family were pleasantly surprised by his big achievement.

“I feel proud, surprised, and happy,” Bruce said.

“There’s 6,000 people and I didn’t know how I could win,” he added.

“We were also quite shocked. The competition was quite fierce. Being in India, there was a lot of local talent as well. So we went in, obviously, hoping that he would do his best. And we were very shocked and very, very happy that he was able to take home the grand prize,” said Arthur Chang, Bruce’s father.

“We are very proud. We don’t want it to get to his head. So just because he won a competition doesn’t mean it’s over. He’ll continue to practice and continue to work hard,” he added.

The UCMAS is a program intended to help children between the ages of five and 13 develop cognitive skills while using an abacus as a tool.

“We help them solve mathematical equations. But our main goal is to develop your child’s brain through mathematics. So we develop various aspects of their brain. Concentration is one. Memory power, speed, accuracy, focusing, and a lot more as well,” explained Jeffery Jeyaratnam, a teacher at UCMAS Côte-des-Neiges.

Competitors at the international event had eight minutes to correctly complete 200 questions, 50 more than what was asked at the Canadian competition.

Around 20 competitors were from Canada.

“It was fun,” said Bruce. “I was excited,” he added.

“Bruce was in the Z category for the younger participants of UCMAS, the beginners. He started the program exactly one year ago, and Bruce was crowned the grand champion of that category. Grand champion means he had the highest score among all age groups that participated. So six-year-olds, seven-year-olds, eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds—he got the best score out of all of them,” said Jeyaratnam.

“It’s not always about winning, but I won and I liked winning,” said Bruce.

Leading up to the competition, Bruce practiced a lot.

“Leading up to India, we were already traveling, so we were trying to squeeze in as much practice as possible at the hotels we were staying at. But at some point, he would do maybe one or two practice tests before we went to see the Taj Mahal or something like that. But we did our best,” said Chang.

“I did do a lot of practice tests—at least one per day, or sometimes six or seven,” said Bruce.

“I like math because I like solving equations,” he added.

His father spoke about the importance of his son learning mental math.

“For us, we’ve noticed that the mental abacus really trains both sides of the brain. So we’ve noticed that he is able to be quite creative, even though this is a scientific discipline. The ability to use the brain to visualize the abacus really helps him with his creativity. We’ve seen it in his chess. I can’t beat him at all in chess anymore. We’ve noticed that his piano playing is getting better. So we all think it’s all helping. Everything’s helping,” Chang expressed.

After this success, Bruce is already looking forward to doing it all again.

“I would like doing more competitions,” said Bruce.

“Our desire is for him to continue in abacus and in other disciplines, and just work hard, try to keep beating his personal best every time,” explained Chang.