How to start an Informatics Olympiad Program
How to start an Informatics Olympiad Program
- Find students and train them. Maybe from Math or Physics Olympiad.
- Source for funding. Maybe this happens before 0.
- Run a National Contest and maybe camp to select five students.
- Bebras Competition doesn’t require students to already know how to code
- Send an observer to the International Olympiad for Informatics a year before you send a team.
- Send a team of four members, one deputy, one team leader.
- Use Competitive Programming 4 for training together with Kattis. Or USACO Guide
- It may be worthwhile to reach out to trading firms and / or existing IOI sponsors
Approach for Team Rwanda
- There was an existing Math Olympiad
- GTN Grant
- Training done via Competitive Programming Handbook during in person sessions from 2 p.m. - 5 p.m. on Saturdays
- Observer sent to IOI 2024 in Egypt
- Selection camp was held over the course of eight days with a mix of selection tests. We used Contest Management System for holding contests
- Students set both an AI test for IOAI and an informatics test for IOI. Two separate teams were selected there and sent to camp under two separate tracks. Students were not allowed to decide on their track this year.
Arun, the founder of Math Olympiads in Rwanda and African Olympiad Academy is writing a blogpost about Olympiads, which I suspect will be more illuminating than the sketch notes above.