New Zealand Olympiad in Informatics

NZOI is the NZ Informatics Olympiad, one of a number of Secondary School Olympiads operating under the umbrella NZ Science Olympiads organization. The NZOI's goals are to:

• Provide training opportunities in Informatics to selected New Zealand students who are currently enrolled in a Secondary School in New Zealand or who have been enrolled in the last year
• To select students for the International Olympiad in Informatics www.ioinformatics.org (IOI)
• To foster informatics (programming) in high schools.

The IOI is the foremost high school programming contest in the world. Each year, about August, it is hosted by a different country. New Zealand first sent a team in 2006 to the 18th Olympiad.

Process:

NZOI contacts all teachers of students entered in either the New Zealand Programming Contest, the Australian Computer Programming Contest or the Australian Informatics Competition. Through the teachers, invitations are made to students to attend a summer camp in January. Other talented programming students are eligible for camp.
Those students participate in further contests and eventually 4 students are selected to attend the IOI in August.

Organisation and Staff

NZOI is an incorporated Society. It was established in late 2006. Membership is by application through the website.Members must have a proven history of involvement with programming competitions. Current students and their families are not eligible for membership.
All staff at camp are volunteers, most coming from Computer Science faculties in universities from around the country.