27/09/2004

The 16th International Olympiad in Informatics, held on 11-18 September 2004, in Athens, has been a success, with 304 students participating from 80 countries. The first prize winner of the competition was Paul Jefferys from UK, followed by the Chinese students Weidong Hu and Tiancheng Lou.

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) for high school students throughout the world is a great international event, established in 1989. The institution was proposed by professor Sedov, during the 24th General Assembly of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and constitutes one of the six academic Olympiads (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy) established by UNESCO.

The first IOI was held in Bulgaria in 1989. Since then, it has been organised every year, in a different country, with a continuously increasing number of students and countries involved. Greece hosted the International Olympiad in Informatics for the second time (the 3rd IOI had also taken pace in Athens, in 1991). Greek students have won 13 medals (one silver and 12 bronze medals) in previous Olympiads.

The IOI 2004 was organised by the Greek Computer Society, with the support of the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the National University of Athens and the Informatics Department of the Technological Educational Institution (T.E.I.) of Athens, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education of Greece. The contestants were asked to resolve, in 10 hours, tasks related to algorithmic and computer programming in Pascal and C. Greece participated with two teams, each with four students selected as a result of a national competition.

The next International Olympiad in Informatics will take place in 2005, in Poland.