The 2023 European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI) came to an end in Lund, Sweden on Friday, 21 July, and the Hungarian team returned home with two silver medals. The aim of the event, which took place for the third time, is to draw attention to female talents, as there are fewer women working as computer scientists both globally and in Hungary. Seeing the success of the participants, more girls may be inspired to pursue this career path.
From 15–21 July, students from 52 countries around the world participated in the EGOI held in Lund, Sweden. Similar to other informatics Olympiads such as CEOI and IOI, the contestants had to solve programming tasks during the competition. The tasks were not any easier than they would have been in an all boys’ competition. At the 2023 EGOI, from the four-member Hungarian delegation, two students, Csilla Fülöp from the Radnóti Miklós Secondary School in Szeged and Zsófia Keresztély from Budapest’s Szent István Secondary School, also won silver medals. Among the 185 participants in the EGOI, Boglárka Nagy, a student from Kölcsey Ferenc Secondary School in Szatmárnémeti (Satu Mare, Romania) and Korina Nagy, who attends the Bányai Júlia Secondary School in Kecskemét, finished in 115th and 131st place, respectively.
The aim of the EGOI organisers is to encourage young girls to engage in programming through the competition. Experience shows that many girls do not choose a career in the information and communication sector due to long-standing stereotypes that wrongly consider it a male-dominated field.
The student Olympians prepared for the competition through training sessions organised as part of the talent development programme of the John von Neumann Computer Society with the support of the Boston Consulting Group and the National Talent Programme. The team was led by Dr. Ágnes Erdős–Németh, Vice President for Talent Development at the John von Neumann Computer Society, and Zsanett Szabó, Deputy Team Leader.
‘We participated in an important and motivating event where both the girls and the team leaders exchanged valuable ideas, engaged in interesting conversations, learned about similar issues faced by other countries, and explored different solutions. The competition this year marks the beginning of further collaborations. Participating in the European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics is not only significant because of the competition itself, but also because it provides motivation for hard work in the upcoming year and opportunities for building valuable connections,’ commented Dr Ágnes Erdős–Németh on this year’s results.
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