Bio

Rojo holds a master’s degree in contemporary China studies from Renmin University of China (Beijing) and a “Maitrise” in public law and political science from the Catholic University of Madagascar. His primary interests are focused on Chinese strategic culture and the philosophy of history. He is working as a consultant in public policy evaluation in Antananarivo, Madagascar.

Project: Spherical Voronoi Diagram and the Map of Madagascar

My project is about maps. I was inspired by the work of a data visualization specialist, Jason Davies. He drew a map of the world in which borders follow mathematically impartial pathways (constructed from a spherical Voronoi diagram) whose centers are the capital cities of the respective countries. Some of the Voronoi borders are approximately congruent with actual borders. My goal is to take a specific country (Madagascar), create Voronoi cells that are centered on the cities that compose that country and compare them with maps with actual administrative subdivisions. I would also like to include the geophysical, ecological and demographic features of the country. I hope to get interesting statistical conclusions from that comparison.

Favorite 3-Color 2D Totalistic Cellular Automaton

Rule 565393992

I took my family name, “Randrianarivony,” and converted it into ternary numbers. I used it as the initial condition and with r=565393992. I ran it until step 100 and I obtained a map-like pattern.