Ghana to participate in Informatics Olympiad

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06-08-08

GHANA will for the first time participate in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) slated to be held this month in Egypt.
The competition would be held from August 16-23, 2008 and would have four senior high school graduates representing the country.
They are Joel Budu, Ama Peprah Asare, Elias Konadu and Priscilla Asare Debrah.
The four students were selected from a group of 26 after they had been shortlisted from a total of 60.
The Olympiad seeks to foster friendly international relations among computer scientists and informatics educators, bring the discipline of informatics to the attention of young people and promote the organisation of informatics competitions, among other things.
According to Mrs Dorothy Aku Allotey, the Coordinator of the ‘I Too Can Programme’ (i2CAP) at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, the Centre in collaboration with Finatrade Foundation organised a national open computer programme competition for all students and graduates below 20 years of age and the four students performed creditably.
She said it was the hope that the i2CAP project will achieve its objectives in order to raise a good team for the country on yearly basis to participate in subsequent Olympiads, adding that the fact that young Ghanaians were experts in creating programmes and conversant with a number of programming languages, increased opportunities for investment in the Information Technology sector.
The i2CAP project sought to generate the enthusiasm of young people in the use and application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) through inter-school computer programme competitions where outstanding students are rewarded for their creativity and initiative.
It was piloted nationwide with 267 senior high schools participating in the training of trainers workshops.