Today at the closing ceremony of the 26th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), held at the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC), Premier Jiang Yi-huah thanked the contestants and affiliated civil society groups for their participation and said he expects the participants to continue to unleash their creativity and work together to develop the information and communications technology (ICT) industry.
The IOI is an international competition in informatics, which are defined as "computer science, computing science and information technology, but not…computer engineering." This year's event is being held in the TICC from July 13 to 20. All contestants are secondary school students who are no older than 20 years of age on July 1 of the competition year.
A record-breaking number of national teams and contestants have taken part in the event, Jiang noted. He said he was very pleased with this news and noted that since the inaugural IOI in 1989, the number of nations in the competition has risen from 13 to 82.
"Not every team could come out on top in this competition, but all could nimbly apply their expert informatics knowledge to show their creativity and vitality. That is something to be proud of," Jiang said.
The premier emphasized that it was a great honor for the Republic of China (Taiwan) to receive the hosting rights for this year's competition. "I believe this is the fruit of years of advocacy of informatics education and commitment to creative research and development, which have already won Taiwan international acclaim," he said.
"However, we cannot be content with that," the premier emphasized. "I hope that the combined efforts of our government and all countries that value technological advancement can take ICT industry development to the next level."