BIOC arranges nation's first Informatics Olympiad

(From left) Sarwar Alam, president of Basis speaks at the press conference while Dr. Jafar Iqbal, chairman of BIOC, Dr. Kaykobad, professor, Department of CSE, BUET and Dr. Miftahur Rahman, chair, Department of CSE, NSU look on

The formation of BIOC on July 16, 2004, was entirely inspired by International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), which is the premier worldwide high-school computer programming competition. BIOC, which has been formed under the leadership of eminent information technology scientists and academicians, intends to help the nation in the capacity-building of young and talented scholars towards building a refined future and also excel in the changing dimensions with the IOI.

"We tend to create a similar format of problems to that of IOI for this national competition," says Dr Jafar Iqbal, chairman of BIOC and an academic of a local science university.

Earlier this year, Dr Kaykobad, professor, department of CSE, BUET went to Athens, Greece to meet the chairman of IOI 2004 as an observer from Bangladesh.

"They already know Bangladesh for our participations in ACM ICPC competitions," stated Kaykobad. The chairman of IOI has confirmed the participation of Bangladeshi team in IOI 2005 to be held in Poland.

According to Dr Kaykobad, the sample problems that he was provided during his visit can be expected to be met by programmers from Bangladesh, but he agrees that this much achievement will not come easy.

"We will have to personally train these individuals for taking part in IOI 2005," he said. Thus, BIOC will try to create a similar challenging environment in the upcoming national Olympiad as well. "We will keep the same number and types of problems," he added.

Dr Iqbal emphasised the attention needed by champions of the national Olympiad from BIOC in preparation for participating in the IOI 2005.

"After this competition, we will have some months to help refine the programming excellence of the selected few," he said.

One of the six academic Olympiads for high school students throughout the world, IOI was first proposed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco). The goals of IOI are to bring together, challenge and give recognition to young students from around the world who are the most talented in informatics, and also to foster friendship among students from diverse cultures.

The national Olympiad will facilitate about a hundred to a hundred twenty individuals as contestants from different colleges within the city. It has been requested that each college authority nominate at least ten contestants to participate in the national Olympiad. BIOC has already communicated with thirty-seven colleges and have received responses from some.

The registration deadline for the competition was November 22, at which time a nominal fee of Tk 100 was taken. The students were expected to register through the online registration process at www.ewubd.edu/bioc using the registration link.

The key objectives of the national Olympiad are quite extended. BIOC will offer the following criteria as objectives:

· To discover, encourage, bring together challenges and give recognition to young students in Bangladesh who are exceptionally talented in the field of informatics.

· To bring the discipline of informatics to the attention of young citizens

· To develop friendly international relationships among computer scientists and informatics educators, and

· Send teams to IOI competitions.

The competition will be hosted by EWU and co-organised by Basis. The prize giving ceremony for the competition will also be arranged by Basis on November 26 of Basis SOFTEXPO 2004, at Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Center.

It should be mentioned here that the mega-exposition titled SOFTEXPO 2004, whose theme has been selected to be 'Towards ICT driven Bangladesh', is the biggest showcase for software products, ICT enabled services, and ICT system solutions in Bangladesh, where large manufacturers, service industry players, development organizations, different governmental agencies, consultants, and other local system integrators will be present. More information on Basis SOFTEXPO 2004 is available at www.-softexpo.com.bd.

The whole team of BIOC and also the Basis executives present at the event were very enthusiastic about the integration of Bangladesh industries and the students.

"Academics as well as local industries need these students to work for them," says Alam.

It is hoped that in some recent future local entrepreneurs will make use of local talents while they are in the education system, which will elevate the practical experience base of the student body of the country.