IOI

About the Indian Computing Olympiad

The Indian Computing Olympiad is a nationwide competition organized annually by IARCS. The goal of the competition is to identify school students with outstanding skills in algorithms and computer programming.

The Indian Computing Olympiad is used to select the team of four students to represent India at the International Olympiad for Informatics (IOI). IOI is one of the twelve international Science Olympiads held annually. Other prominent Science Olympiads include Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Astronomy.

Eligibility

The Indian Computing Olympiad is open to all school students across the country, from any school board. Any student registered in school upto class 12 during the academic year 2020-2021 is eligible. There is no lower age limit for participation.

To participate, you must still be in school. If you have completed Class 12, you are no longer eligible, even if you have taken a break and are not enrolled in college, or if are planning to redo your Class 12 exams for improvement.

Registration

Registration dates for 2021–2022 will be announced by the end of August, 2021.

Stages

The first round of the Indian Computing Olympiad is in two parts.

• The Zonal Informatics Olympiad (ZIO) is a written exam held at centres across the country. ZIO is normally held in November-December. ZIO-2021 was held on 19 December, 2020.
• The Zonal Computing Olympiad (ZCO) is a programming exam held at centres across the country. The programming languages supported are C, C++, Java and Python. ZCO is normally held in November-December. Due to CoViD-19 constraints, ZCO-2021 did not take place.
• Students can write either ZIO or ZCO or both and qualify through either exam for the second round.The second round, the Indian National Olympiad in Informatics (INOI) involves programming. INOI is normally held in January-February. The only programming language allowed for INOI is C++, since IOI has withdrawn Java as an official language from 2021. INOI-2021 took place on 28 February, 2021.Approximately 30 students are selected from INOI for the IOI Training Camp (IOITC). IOITC is normally organized in early May. Due to the CoViD-19 situation, IOITC-2021 was held online during March–June, 2021.

  IOI-2022 will be hosted by Indonesia.

  How to prepare for ICO

  • Go through the Online Study Material for ICO. The syllabus for ZIO, ZCO and INOI is the list of Basic Topics in the Online Study Material  …
  • Mentoring programme for ZCO, INOI and IOITC by past IOITC participants  …
  • Preparatory material for ICO on CodeChef  …
  • ICO Learning Program to prepare for ICO, weekly sessions by CodeChef volunteers  …
  • Solve problems online at the IARCS Problems Archive  …
  • Join the IOI online community  …

  Incentives for students

  Codechef conducts a monthly programming contest Lunch Time through Codechef for Schools and offers incentives for IOI through the Go for Gold for IOI programme  …

  The following academic institutions in India have special admission procedures for ICO students.

  • Amrita University offers fully funded B.Tech. Honors CSE programme for students who perform well in ICO  …
  • Chennai Mathematical Institute offers direct admission to students selected for IOITC in Class 12  …
  • IIIT Delhi offers bonus marks to students selected for INOI and IOITC  …
  • IIIT Hyderabad offers admission via the Olympiad category to students selected for IOITC  …

  The following international academic institutions have special admission procedures for IOI students.

  • The Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo, Canada, offers Michael and Ophelia Lazaridis Olympiad Scholarships to IOI medallists  …
  • The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has a scholarship scheme for IOI gold medallists  …
  • Nanyang Technical University (NTU), Singapore exempts IOI medallists from writing the entrance exam  …
  • National University of Singapore (NUS) offers special consideration for IOI medallists .