Worldwide Girls' Informatics Olympiad (WGIO)

WGIO would be cheaper to host, available to countries which are not able to participate in IOI / EGOI, even bigger and more motivating.
Photo illustrating the regional hubs of WGIO.
Pictures from the first EGOI, which was hosted by all individual countries (because of COVID).
Illustration of easier travel.
Brazil and European distances.

Inspiration

While we were in high school, we already noticed that girls were less encouraged to compete in programming contests. Now that we are in University and study Software Engineering (both of us), there are much more male students than female students. For example, in Karolina’s academic group, there are 3 females and 21 male. We think that this gap should be mitigated by providing more opportunities for girls to showcase their knowledge and improve their self esteem.

What it does

Worldwide Girls' Informatics Olympiad is a world-wide girls’ programming competition held in smaller, regional hubs. Each hub would represent a group of countries, typically three to four, as opposed to the 50-100 countries typically accommodated in European or International Olympiads. Furthermore, there will be one unified scoreboard across the whole world which means that girls can participate in this huge intercontinental contest from the convenience of their own hub.

Challenges we ran into

It was crucial to assess if the idea of making the Olympiad happen at the same time in multiple places, was feasible. Different continents, different time zones make everything harder because the tasks must stay secret until the last contestant finishes solving them. Unsure of how to resolve this possible data leak, we have decided to search for positive past examples. As we found out, during the pandemic, two IOI Olympiads were hosted by Singapore online (2020 & 2021). Since they could do it with no problems, we will be able too!

What we learned

Even though we knew that very few girls compete in the IOI every year, it was still fascinating to learn that some years the percentage of female contestants drops to 0.9%! While checking our idea we talked to many EGOI delegation leaders, the idea was met with very positive reactions. For example, Brazil even opened our eyes that for some contestants traveling to the capital of the country takes longer than for Europeans to travel from Helsinki to Lisbon crossing almost the whole Europe!

What's next for Worldwide Girls' Informatics Olympiad (WGIO)

We would love to have the first WGIO in 2026 and have at least one hub in each continent (except for Antarctica, of course:) ). Since the tasks will be the same for all participants, it would be great to have tasks of two levels - regular and entrance level. The easier tasks would be given to participants from countries which have never participated in IOI or EGOI ever before. Since these countries probably do not have such good preparation for Olympiads systems, the easier tasks would be easier for participants to tackle.