The ICT Minister Yasser ElKady has honored bronze winning students who represented Egypt in the 28th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), held in Kazan, Russia on August 12 -19, with the participation of 306 competitors from 81 countries.

Four high-school students represented Egypt in the competition, selected through competitions held at the national level, and were trained by the Central Department of Training and Human Capacity Building at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT). The ceremony was attended by MCIT Undersecretary and the Head of the Central Department of Training and Human Capacity Building Abdel Nasser Awad.

ElKady has said that this honoring is within the framework of MCIT keenness to support creativity and innovation among young people in different ages, including school and university students and graduates. MCIT provides the training necessary to qualify those young people to compete in competitions and international forums, contributing to the building of a generation able to keep up with latest technology in the ICT field, and disseminating these technologies among the younger generations.

IOI is the most reputable international competition for school students in the field of algorithms, data structures and computer programming. The competition is held over two days, during which contestants solve three problems a day. Maximum of four contestants are chosen through national contests to represent each participating country in the competition.

Since 2005, MCIT has been keen to sponsor the annual participation in the IOI, where Egypt hosted the competition in 2008. Over the past years, Egypt won many silver and bronze medals, a matter which helped to provide jobs opportunities and scholarships for participants in major global IT companies.

MCIT is keen on providing numerous training programs targeting various segments of society, such as the programs of job training, specialized training for fresh graduates from Egyptian universities and the training of the administrative organ of the state personnel. This is in addition to the training program on call centers and customer service and the program of technical training on supporting computers and networking and the basic IT training.