IBB Exam 2025

The moment of truth had arrived! Our national Dutch champion Luca was about to take on the other international winners of the local Brainbees. The International Brainbee is a competition for high-school students, much like the Wiskunde Olympiade (International Mathematics Olympiad), but slightly less known (at least for now..).

Within the Dutch Brainbee board, we decided that we would host Luca at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience. Just like we did last year with Gina. Luca went through three rounds of questions about the brain within the secure and restricted environment of the IBB organization. He worked on these questions for a couple of hours, after which he joined our weekly Friday seminars so Luca could see what an academic talk looks like and meet some neuroscientists in their natural habitat.

Unfortunately Luca didn’t make it to the final round, but the competition is fierce! Most neuroscienstists I know don’t stand a chance against these extremely clever high-school students. We’re very proud of Luca’s achievement and are already looking forward to the next edition of the Brainbee.

We will organize the next national round at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam on the 21st of March. If you are or know a highschool student that is up for a challenge, consider signing up for our event and/or our newsletter. You can find more information on our website.