Indian National Olympiad in Informatics

The Indian National Olympiad in Informatics (INOI) is the second of the three rounds of the Indian Computing Olympiad towards selection of the Indian team for the annual International Olympiad in Informatics. Selected students are eligible for a fortnight-long training camp, the IOITC.

About the Indian Computing Olympiad

The Indian Computing Olympiad (ICO) is a nationwide competition organized annually by the Indian Association for Research in Computing Science in coordination with CBSE. The goal of the competition is to identify school students with outstanding skills in algorithms and computer programming.

INOI is the second of the three stages towards selection of the Indian team for the IOI, the first and the third being ZIO and IOITC respectively. In this exam, students have to write programs on a computer, unlike the ZIO which is a pen-and-paper test. About thirty students are selected for a fortnight long intensive training camp (IOITC).

Organizers

The INOI has been conducted by the Indian Association for Research in Computing Science with organisational help from the Central Board of Secondary Education.

Pattern of the exam

The INOI is a programming competition round. Students are expected to solve two algorithmic problems in 3 hours in either C , C++ or Pascal [http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/] . Questions in this round are similar to those in the IOI and other national computing olympiads. Examples of such questions can be found at the [http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/programming-contest.php IARCS monthly online contest page] .

Eligibilty and participation

The eligibility criteria used for the IOI are also used for the INOI. Hence, all Indian nationals who have not formally joined college are eligible for writing the INOI.

Students who have been selected through the ZIO are allowed to participate in this round. Also, all students who participated in the IOITC the previous year and are still eligible for participation in the INOI get a direct entry to write INOI without writing the ZIO.

Conduct of the exam

The INOI is held at various centres across the country. Students are provided with a computer with the necessary programming environment for the competition. This year INOI was held on January 19, 2008 and [http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/2008/inoi2008/results_inoi2008.php results] have been declared.

election for the training camp

About thirty top-performing students in the INOI are selected for the International Olympiad in Informatics Training Camp. These students are provided with a cd-rom containing FreePascal, Windows versions of GNU C and C++ (DJGPP) and other necessary tools for practising.

New developments

There have been complaints in the past that the name "Informatics" is misleading. From 2006-07 the entire olympiad process (comprising the ZIO, INOI, and IOITC) will be called Indian Computing Olympiad, or ICO. However the names of the various stages/examinations remains unchanged.

External links

* [http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/ Official INOI homepage, hosted by IARCS]
* [http://www.iarcs.org.in IARCS]
* [http://www.iarcs.org.in/inoi/programming-contest.php IARCS monthly online contest page]