The Egyptian team participating in the 33rd edition of the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in Singapore has won two bronze medals, after competing in a ten-hour contest, over two days, with 351 participants from 88 countries, bringing Egypt's prize tally in IOI to 25 medals.
The team went through several qualifiers that started last September with the launch of the 13th edition of the Egyptian Olympiad in Informatics (EOI), held under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT).
IOI is an annual flagship computer science competition targeting school students. It aims to motivate students to study computer science and IT, as well as to build strong friendships among school students and computer science and IT experts around the world, as it acts as a forum that brings together techies and software nerds and experts.
Each participating country in IOI is represented by a team of four students and supervisors. The students compete individually over two days to solve algorithmic problems through writing a code on the computer to solve the problem. Each student strives to achieve the highest score to win a medal for their country.
Other days of the competition include cultural and recreational trips to help build strong friendships and transfer experiences among students and supervisors, and to build a collaborative international community in software and IT.
In 2002, Egypt became an IOI member state and participated in the competition held in Finland with the first team of school students, who were selected and trained by AASTMT. After that, MCIT was keen to support outstanding students in software, and adopted an initiative to organize EOI in collaboration with AASTMT, which had a significant impact on improving the scores of the Egyptian students in IOI. Egypt has now become one of strongest competitors in IOI, achieving 25 silver and bronze medals so far.
The Egyptian students who participated in IOI and EOI were able to land job opportunities in major international companies, and some even received scholarships to study at top-notch universities.
