Yasmeen ElNagar became an IYMC Ambassador in Egypt

Reported by Julia Berens · October 1, 2026 · 3 min read

Yasmeen ElNagar’s journey in Egypt began with what she describes as injustice during high school. Rather than let that experience close the story, she treated it as a reason to search for other doors and prove what she was capable of achieving. That choice shaped the path that followed, including her four consecutive years in the International Youth Math Challenge.

For her, IYMC was more than a mathematics competition. It became a way to test her abilities and widen her ambitions, while also helping her notice opportunities she had not seen before. While studying, she also built her CV step by step, earning 35 experience certificates. She also completed in person training at Banque Misr and online training at CIB. She also created study groups to explain and revise different subjects with classmates, seeing that support as part of her own growth.

Finding her place in statistics

At university, ElNagar chose the Statistics Department even though people around her did not approve. She made that decision on her own terms, believing that a person should not choose a future based on other people’s opinions, but on what they believe in and what they can contribute. During those years, she was selected as the Ideal Student at faculty level for two consecutive years.

She also received a commemorative shield from the Statistics Department because she was the first person from the department to take part in the competition. Her professors supported her throughout university, and she says some of them called her their teaching assistant before the role had officially arrived. When her dream of becoming a teaching assistant at her own university did not come true in the way she expected, she learned that the problem was not always the dream itself, but the path she had imagined.

Soon after graduation, a new opportunity opened at the Higher Institute of Computer Science and Business Administration in El Zarqa, where she began working as a Statistics teaching assistant. That move brought a large part of her original dream into reality, just not in the place she had first planned. Today she works in a field she loves and continues to hold on to the idea that ambitions should stay steady even when opportunities change.

Her story also has a strong personal side. She remembers the support and sacrifices of her mother and father, especially during moments when she doubted herself. She also speaks about a promise made years ago that there would be three doctors in the family. Her eldest sister is a medical doctor, her other sister studied at the Faculty of Science, and ElNagar says their family has already fulfilled that dream in its own way.

An ambassador and researcher

ElNagar is now an IYMC Ambassador in Egypt. In that role, she introduces students to the competition, encourages them to try new experiences and helps them see their abilities from a different angle. She also shares what she learned herself, that a challenge can become a beginning and that self confidence grows through trying and persevering.

Alongside this work, she is continuing her academic journey through her Master’s thesis in a research field where Arabic language resources are still limited. She hopes her work will help develop new statistical formulas and solutions and open the way for further research.