Balkan Olympiad in Informatics draws to a close
Maribor, 3 November - The 30th iteration of the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics concluded on Thursday in Maribor. The programming competition for secondary school students from the Balkans and nearby countries saw 73 competitors from 17 countries face off in six programming tasks.
Maribor.
The closing ceremony of the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics.
Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/STA
Maribor.
The closing ceremony of the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics.
Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/STA
Maribor.
The closing ceremony of the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics.
Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/STA
Maribor.
The closing ceremony of the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics.
Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/STA
Maribor.
The closing ceremony of the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics.
Photo: Boštjan Podlogar/STA
The Olympiad hosted 73 competitors and 40 mentors from 17 countries from Sunday until Thursday.
On each of the two competition days the competitors had to complete three programming tasks in five hours. Each task required them to find the correct answer to a problem by writing code. They worked in programming languages C and C++ in the Linux operating system.
Romanian Mihnea Andreescu was the only one who solved all the challenges correctly and collected all 600 points. Second place went to Romanian Mihai Valeriu Voicu, while Bulgarian Daniel Koynov came in third.
Six gold, 12 silver and 19 bronze medals were awarded at the competition. Among the Slovenians Jakob Žorž performed the best and took home a bronze medal.
The competition was organised by the Association for Technical Culture in Slovenia (ZOTKS) with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
The aim of the competition is to encourage interest in computer science and IT among the young. "Computers affect virtually every aspect of our lives and we all use them, yet knowledge of coding is very poor," said the organisers, adding that the basics of computer science should be taught in primary and secondary school.
Slovenia has long been taking part in informatics Olympiads, first participating in the International Olympiad of Informatics in 1993. Slovenia already hosted a European Junior Olympiad in 2019.