Welcome to CEOI by András Benczúr
Dear Contestants, Team Leaders, Organizers and Guests!
András Benczúr, President of the 19th CEOI
I have great honor to be the president of the 19th Central-European Olympiad in Informatics and be the first one to officially welcome you.
Now we are opening the most specific and characteristic Olympic game of our era with 12 national teams and one of the hosting Eötvös József Second-ary School. This year is the year of the Olympic Games, what gives me a good reason to compare the two Olympiad. Dear team members, on one hand, you have been trained like the athletes to gain high performance in algorithmic thinking and programming. On the other hand, you have to compete in a technical sport, you have to force an artifact to obey your instruction and compute the solution of the problem efficiently.
Let me make a personal remark what explains why I can fully share your excitement before the contest. It was exactly 50 years ago when I participated in the Olympiad in Mathematics. What does distinguish the Olympiads in Informatics from Olympiad in Mathematics? It is not enough to find a good algorithmic solution of the problem – like solving a problem in math, you have to implement it. That’s why I call this contest the most characteristic new contest of the Information Era; it is related to the new fundamental way of problem solving: the algorithmic thinking.
Don’t forget, your peak performance during the contest is not the same as the work of professionals in computer science and information technology. Here, you are sportsman; your talent is developed and trained for the contest. Winning a run-ning race is not the same as catching the deer in hunting but it gives a good chance to become a great hunter! Your selection and preparation for the com-petition emphasizes the importance of algorithmic thinking and helps selecting young talented people in this new field of human capabilities. The new ma-chinery, the computer obeys only to al-gorithms and information technology relies on the quality of implemented al-gorithms. So you are promises for the future!
Please, remember, you are not fighting against each other; you are only fighting against yourself. You are here, so you did win at least one battle!
Enjoy your game, good luck!