The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is an annual computer science competition for secondary school students. The first IOI was held in 1989 in Pravetz, Bulgaria.
The contest consists of two days computer programming, solving problems of an algorithmic nature. Students compete on an individual basis, with up to four students competing from each participating country (with around 81 countries in 2004). Students in the national teams are selected through national computing contests, such as the Australian Informatics Olympiad, British Informatics Olympiad, and Bundeswettbewerb Informatik (Germany).
The IOI is one of the most prestigious computer science competitions in the world. UNESCO and IFIP are patrons of the International Olympiad in Informatics.
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On each of the two competition days, the students are typically given four problems which they have to solve in five hours. Each student works on his/her own, with only a computer and no other help allowed, specifically no communication with other contestants, books etc. Usually to solve a task the contestant has to write a computer program (in C, C++ or Pascal) and submit it before the five hour competition time ends. The program is graded by being run with secret test data. For IOI 2010, tasks are divided into subtasks with graduated difficulty, and points are awarded only when all tests for a particular subtask yield correct results, within specific time and memory limits. In some cases, the contestant's program has to interact with a secret computer library, which allows problems where the input is not fixed, but depends on the program's actions – for example in game problems. Another type of problem has known inputs which are publicly available already during the five hours of the contest. For these, the contestants have to submit an output file instead of a program, and it is up to them whether they obtain the output files by writing a program (possibly exploiting special characteristics of the input), or by hand, or by a combination of these means.
IOI 2010 will for the first time have a live web scoreboard with real-time provisional results. Submissions will be scored as soon as possible during the contest, and the results posted. Contestants will be aware of their scores, but not others', and may resubmit to improve their scores.
The scores from the two competition days and all problems are summed up separately for each contestant. At the awarding ceremony, contestants are awarded medals depending on their relative total score. The top 50% of the contestants are awarded medals, such that the relative number of gold : silver : bronze : no medal is approximately 1:2:3:6 (thus 1/12 of the contestants get a gold medal).
Unlike other science olympiads, the IOI regulations specifically prohibit ranking by countries. Although unofficial rankings are circulated within some participating nations, there is therefore no standard. Students who do not receive medals do not have their scores published, making it impossible for a country to be ranked by adding together scores of its competitors unless each wins a medal.
The following is a list of the top performers in the history of the IOI. The * sign indicates a perfect score, a rare achievement in IOI history. Also, First (I), second (II) and third (III) places among gold medalists are indicated where appropriate. This list includes only those countries where the national selection contest allows the same participant to go multiple times to the IOI.
| Name | Team | Years | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gennady Korotkevich | Belarus | G*(I) 2011 | G(I) 2010 | G(I) 2009 | G 2008 | G 2007 | S 2006 |
| Filip Wolski | Poland | G(I) 2006 | G 2005 | G 2004 | G 2003 | ||
| Martin Pettai | Estonia | G 2002 | G 2001 | G 2000 | S 1999 | ||
| Andrzej Gąsienica-Samek | Poland | G 1999 | G 1998 | G 1997 | S 1996 | ||
| Vladimir Martianov | Russia | G 1999 | G(I) 1998 | G(I) 1997 | |||
| Martin Mareš | Czech Republic | G 1995 | G 1994 | G 1993 | |||
| John Pardon | United States | G 2007 | G 2006 | G 2005 | |||
| Marcin Andrychowicz | Poland | G 2008 | G 2007 | G 2006 | |||
| Neal Wu | United States | G 2010 | G 2009 | G 2008 | |||
| Alex Schwendner | United States | G 2005 | G 2003 | S 2004 | S 2002 | ||
| Rumen Hristov | Bulgaria | G 2011 | G(II) 2010 | S 2009 | S 2008 | ||
| Wolfgang Thaller | Austria | G 1997 | G 1996 | S 1999 | S 1998 | ||
| Bruce Merry | South Africa | G 2001 | G 2000 | S 1999 | B 1998 | B 1997 | B 1996 |
| Goran Žužić | Croatia | G 2008 | G 2007 | S 2009 | B 2006 | ||
| Victor Bargachev | Russia | G(I) 1995 | G(I) 1994 | S 1993 | |||
| Mihai Pătraşcu | Romania | G(II) 2001 | G 2000 | S 1999 | |||
| Roman Pastoukhov | Russia | G 2000 | G(II) 1999 | S 2001 | |||
| Piotr Zieliński | Poland | G 1997 | G(III) 1996 | S 1995 | |||
| Miroslav Dudík | Slovakia | G 1997 | G 1996 | S 1995 | |||
| Richard Královič | Slovakia | G 1999 | G 1998 | S 1997 | |||
| Tomasz Czajka | Poland (1998, 2000), United Kingdom (1999) | G 2000 | G 1999 | S 1998 | |||
| Petr Mitrichev | Russia | G 2002 | G 2000 | S 2001 | |||
| Luka Kalinovčić | Croatia | G 2004 | G 2003 | S 2002 | |||
| Rostislav Rumenov | Bulgaria | G 2007 | G 2006 | S 2005 | |||
| Vladislav Epifanov | Russia | G 2008 | G 2007 | S 2009 | |||
| Cosmin Gheorghe | Romania | G 2009 | G 2008 | S 2007 | |||
| Pasin Manurangsi | Thailand | G 2011 | G 2010 | S 2009 | |||
| David Arthur | Canada | G(II) 2000 | G 1999 | B 1998 | |||
| Janis Sermulins | Latvia | G 1999 | G(II) 1997 | B 1998 | |||
| Hong Chen | P.R. China | G(II) 2000 | G(I) 1999 | ||||
| Reid Barton | United States | G(I) 2001 | G 2000 | ||||
| Kazuhiro Hosaka | Japan | G(II) 2009 | G 2008 | ||||
| Velin Tzanov | Bulgaria | G(III) 2002 | G 2001 | ||||
| Ali Babaei Chshmehahmadrezaei | Iran | G 2010 | G 2009 | ||||
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