The 27th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), an annual competitive programming competition for secondary school students, will be held from July 26 until August 2 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
IOI will consist of two competition days; on each day contestants will be given three tasks to complete in five hours. There will be a two-hour Practice Competition prior to the first competition day to familiarize all contestants with the grading system.
The contest consists of computer programming, solving problems of an algorithmic nature.
Students at the IOI compete on an individual basis, with up to four students competing from each participating country (with 81 countries in 2012).
Students in the national teams are selected through national computing contests, such as the Australian Informatics Olympiad, British Informatics Olympiad, and Bundeswettbewerb Informatik of Germany.
Held in 1989 in Pravetz, Bulgaria for the first time, the International Olympiad in Informatics is one of the most prestigious computer science competitions in the world with UNESCO and IFIP being patrons.
