The Saudi Informatics team won 3 international awards at the 35th session of the International Informatics Olympiad 2023, held in Szeged, Hungary, from August 28 to September 4, with 360 students from 90 countries engaged.
Student Humaid Ahmed Alhuthali secondary second grade from Al-Sharqiya Province Education Department, snatched the bronze medal after a journey of preparation and rehabilitation in Mawhiba, during which, he received 3044 training hours, at the hands of a group of Saudi and foreign trainers and experts.
Student Adeeb Salem Alshehry, secondary second grade, from Al-Sharqiya Province Education Department, received a certificate of appreciation, after a journey of preparation and rehabilitation in Mawhiba, during which he received 1884 training hours. Student Essa Almousa, secondary second grade from Al-Ahsa Education Department, received a certificate of appreciation, which received 1084 training hours.
This brilliance and achievement was there with the help of Allah Almighty, and then with the support of the wise leadership, to continue the march towards achieving the KSA Vision 2030 objective, and enhance confidence in the capabilities and potential of Saudi Arabia for global competitions in the domain of informatics, and building a creative generation capable of dealing with a scientific language and foreseeing the future, said the Secretary-General of the King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity "Mawhiba", Dr. Amal Al-Hazza.
The Secretary-General of "Mawhiba", Dr. Amal Al-Hazza extended her sincere thanks and appreciation to His Excellency the Minister of Education, Mr. Yousef Al-Benyan, for his support to Mawhiba Foundation and their programs, to discover, care and empower talented Saudis in public education schools. This victory came as a result of fruitful and constructive cooperation between "Mawhiba" and the Ministry, and an embodiment of this effective partnership that reflects positively on the giftedness and creativity community in the Kingdom, and allows providing greater services to care, train, and qualify the gifted, and create a stimulating environment for gifted and talented students of public education, she added.
The International Informatics Olympiad targets talented secondary school students in the field of informatics worldwide and is held once a year for 8 days. A country hosts the competition annually and prepares theoretical and practical questions, where students' skills are tested while solving vital problems across various branches of informatics.\
It is noteworthy that the International Informatics Olympiad is the largest annual international competition in the field of informatics and the oldest in the world. Targeting students below the age of twenty, it is a competitive programming competition for high school students, in which, students compete to enhance their informatics skills, through problem analysis, algorithm design, data structures, programming, and testing. Each contestant must deal with three tasks, including problems that he/ she must solve within five hours.
The first Informatics Olympiad in the world was held in Bulgaria in 1989, under the auspices of UNESCO and the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). Mawhiba resumed representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2019. Informatics Olympiad is one of the five international science Olympiads organized around the world, forms a prestigious computer science competition, and is the second largest Olympiad competition after the International Mathematics Olympiad in terms of the number of engaging countries. Students compete on an individual basis, where engagement is available to only four students from each country to represent it in international competition.
