The Egyptian Olympiad in Informatics is a national competition in IT and programming.
It incites Egyptian youngsters to be active participants in the society with their information technology and communication knowledge and skills.
Since 2002, MCIT, in cooperation with the Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Marine Transport, has been organizing the Egyptian Olympiad in Informatics (EOI) annually.
Out of hundreds of applicants, from 6 to 20 years old, around 60 are chosen to participate in the contest. The areas that the competition covers have expanded since its initiation to accommodate the new programs and courses provided.
In this manner the EOI can be looked at as a measure of Egypt’s ICT competitiveness and aptitude in the international arena.
It promotes the use of IT tools to solve practical problems, shedding light on talented young in the society giving them the opportunity for success in the marketplace. EOI also promotes and rewards innovation.
Contestants are required to solve a series of questions and problems using methodical thinking and basic computer algorithms to devise a suitable program. Problem solving techniques, according to the competition regulations, include problem definition and analysis, strategy selection and implementation, and finally solution validation.
The first four winning contestants are nominated to represent Egypt in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI).
Every year, around 96 contestants compete in the official programming contest out of 3000. They sign up from all over Egypt to develop optimal solutions for various technical problems that range in difficulty using algorithms, mathematical and numerical methods and computer programming languages over two days for five hours daily.
The first Egyptian Informatics Olympiad (EIO) in 2003 had the greatest impact on the Egyptian participation in the International Olympiad in Informatics. As a result, Egypt won its first bronze medal in 2005 in Poland, another bronze medal in 2006 in Mexico, two silvers and one bronze in 2011, Pattaya, Thailand.
Those medals reflect the fruitful outcome of the Ministry’s strategy encouraging the use of information technology among youth through specialized contests in computer branches.
