ITMO: Russian Team Brings Home Four Medals From European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics

The Russian team won two gold and two silver medals at the European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI 2022), which took place in Antalya, Turkey, on October 16-23. The team was co-trained by Andrey Stankevich, a star coach and an associate professor at ITMO’s Information Technologies and Programming Faculty.

А team of Russian school and university students demonstrated brilliant results at the European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI 2022). The two gold medals were awarded to Ekaterina Poray and Daria Grekova, whereas the silver ones went to Vladislava Sinitsyna and Ekaterina Hossein.

As reported by the press office of the Russian Ministry of Education, the team members were selected by the coaching staff following the results of summer programming training camps organized for the winners and runners-up of the National Olympiad in Informatics in June.

The team was led by Elena Andreeva, the head of the Department of Informatics at Kolmogorov Boarding School of Lomonosov Moscow State University. The deputy head of the team was Andrey Stankevich, a prominent coach of ICPC-winning teams at ITMO University.

EGOI 2022
The European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI) is a programming competition for young women under the age of 20. The first competition took place in Zürich, Switzerland, in 2021. Its format is similar to that of the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) and the Central European Olympiad in Informatics (CEOI): its participants must solve a series of complex problems by developing and implementing their own algorithms.

In 2022, the competition brought together teams from 43 countries. Unlike other participants, the Russian team performed the olympiad’s tasks remotely monitored by an online proctoring system. As noted by Andrey Stankevich, the remote format, though it made it more difficult for the students to perform the tasks, didn’t keep them from achieving a resounding success – mainly because of their thorough training and extensive background. Daria Grekova who took the gold at EGOI 2022 has been competing for a long time, although she is only in the ninth grade. She also won EGOI 2021 and this year, represented Russia at the European Junior Olympiad in Informatics where all the participants from Russia gained gold medals and Daria showed the best result in the overall standings. Just like Daria, Ekaterina Poray is a gold medalist of EGOI 2021 and 2022, who also actively trains and takes part in programming camps.

“We never train specifically for this or that contest, instead we have a robust training system that helps students keep in good shape. It includes programming camps twice a year, in fall and winter, and year-round online contests. What’s more, there are special student clubs in Moscow, St. Petersburg (at ITMO), Chelyabinsk, and Kazan. We don’t have specialized courses for female participants – boys and girls train together,” says Andrey Stankevich.

The coach also added that such competitions as EGOI are an excellent opportunity for young women to overcome fear and self-doubt, as well as get their career off to a strong start.

“Sadly, few young women have an interest in computer science at this level: only 15% of students in my program are female. With so many women choosing not to pursue computer science because of prejudices and stereotypes, EGOI aims to increase their participation in the field,” shares Andrey Stankevich. “After all, success can be reached by anyone who works hard, regardless of their gender. Life constantly gives us evidence for that: after all, female teams represented Russia in international student competitions more than once or take, for example, our graduate Aleksandra Drozdova who won several international contests and was one of the best students in her year.”

What’s next
EGOI will be followed by another major event, the International Autumn Tournament in Informatics, that will take place in Bulgaria in late November. The competition will be held in a hybrid format. The Russian team, including Daria Grekova, will join remotely. One of the teams will be represented by Anton Martynov, a school student from St. Petersburg who trains at ITMO.