Egypt won two silver and one bronze medals in the International Olympiad in Informatics (software and information technology) IOI 2011, hosted in Pattaya, Thailand 22ed - 29th July , 2011.
Eighty one countries worldwide have participated in the activities of the International Olympiad in Informatics this year, and the number of participants has reached 324.
A team of four individuals: Omar Ahmed Elazzazy, Ahmed Salem Ezzat, Emad Farag William and Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Kamel; represented Egypt at the international Olympiad.
This Egyptian team had won the first four positions in the Egyptian Olympiad in Informatics in 2010, held from 16th to 22ed July 2010 under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
Egyptian Olympiad in Informatics is organized annually in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, and Cairo University.
Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Mohamed Salem, stated that Egypt’s winning of this number of medals for the first time, reflects the ability of Egyptian youth of methodological thinking, innovation and development. His Excellency also pointed out to the key role played by youth in January 25th revolution, which brought about change and democracy, through use of information technology.
Those medals also reflect the effective results of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology strategy, which aims at encouraging the use of information technology among youth through specialized competition in computer branches.
Dr. Mohamed Salem stressed MCIT determination to move forward in encouraging and discovering young distinguished talents in IT to represent Egypt in the international arena, and preparing the human resources to the requirements of the labor market in the IT field.
Worth mentioning that the International Olympiad in Informatics is a worldwide competition in programming that is held annually and hosted by one of the applying countries which are selected by the competition International Committee, on a condition that the contestants to be in the age group between 6 to 20 years.
Through the various stages of the competition, the contestants are exposed to a series of questions and problems to solve based on methodology thinking and the use of the basic principles of computer logarithms, to develop steps and methods of sound solutions, in addition to writing computer programs to solve technological problems.
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology established the Egyptian Informatics Olympiad in 2003, where competitions take place annually among the Egyptian contestants in all governorates of Egypt. The best four are nominated each year to represent Egypt in the International Olympiad in Informatics.
The commencement of the first Egyptian Informatics Olympiad in 2003 had the greatest impact on Egyptian teams later in the International Olympiad in Informatics , where Egypt won its first bronze medal in 2005 in Poland, then another bronze medal in 2006 in Mexico.
In 2008 Egypt hosted the International Olympiad in Informatics and won a bronze medal, then won three bronze medals in Bulgaria in 2009 and in 2010, and Egypt won one silver and one bronze medal in Waterloo, Canada.
