The 34th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI 2022) is hosted by the Special Region of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, from August 7th to August 15th, 2022. It is the most prestigious computer science competition for secondary school and high school students around the world.

The International Olympiad in Informatics is one of several international science Olympiads held annually around the world. Exceptional high school students from various countries compete in the prestigious algorithmic competition to sharpen their informatics skills – such as problem analysis, design of algorithms and data structures, programming, and testing.

Each participating country selects a team of up to four contestants to represent their nation. The team, accompanied by a team leader and deputy leader, will compete in a two-day competition. The competition days are 10th and 12th August. On each day contestants will be given three tasks to complete in 5 hours. Prior to the first competition day there will be a 2-hour Practice Competition, to familiarize all contestants with the grading system.

This year, the Bulgarian team concludes:

  • Andon Todorov, 12th grade, Sofia High School of Mathematics,
  • Atanas Dimitrov, 11th grade, Sofia High School of Mathematics,
  • Deyan Hadzhi-Manich, 10th grade, High School of Mathematics „Dr. Petar Beron“, Varna,
  • Martin Kopchev, 12th grade, High School of Mathematics „Acad. Ivan Gyuzelev”, Gabrovo.

Atanas and Deyan are participating in the Olympics for the first time, while for the “veterans” Andon and Martin, this is their third and fifth participation, respectively.

The head of the team is Emil Kelevedjiev, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and the deputy leader is Dobrin Bashev, a student at the Technical University in Delft, the Netherlands.

An interesting and little-known fact is that in 1989, on the initiative of Prof. Blagovest Sendov and Prof. Peter Kenderov, Bulgaria became the organizer and host of the first International Olympiad in Informatics. It took place in Pravets with only 13 countries. Today, the number of participating countries is 88. Bulgaria is one of the few countries that have participated in all editions of the Olympiad so far. Our competitors have won 27 gold, 49 silver and 39 bronze medals.

The 34th International Olympiad in Informatics logo visualizes the computational thinking and programming itself and the true essence of Indonesia. The 1 and 0 visual symbols came from the binary system invented by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the 17th century. It symbolizes the awareness of local culture. The Prambanan Temple, representing the letter “I” by its side view, is the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia. It was built in the year 850 AD by Rakai Pikatan from the Medang Kingdom. On the other hand, the Borobudur Temple, representing the letter “O” by its top view, is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. The Borobudur Temple was built by Samaratungga from the Shailendra Dynasty between 782 and 812 AD. Both Prambanan Temple and Borobudur Temple are parts of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Krishna was chosen to be the Mascot of IOI’2022. Krishna represents intelligence, wisdom, strategy, and technology. It is told that he was able to see images of the future through a device called lopian, which can be interpreted as a data and information processor with a certain algorithm for a certain purpose.