The World's Best Students in AI Honoured at the First International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad in Burgas, Bulgaria

Today, the award ceremony for the top students in AI at the First International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad (IOAI) was held. This exciting event recognized the best teams in two rounds – scientific and practical. Nearly 200 students from six continents, organised into over 40 teams, participated in the Olympiad. The participants gathered in Burgas, Bulgaria, from August 9th to the 15th, where they collectively inaugurated the newest scientific International Olympiad, setting a record with the highest number of registered teams for a first edition.

Over the course of a week, students, leaders, and scholars launched an Olympiad that combines theoretical and applied tasks. Its goal is to challenge participants to think critically, acquire both scientific and practical knowledge, provide them with a perspective on the vast possibilities in the field, and discuss with them as well as the broader community the moral and ethical questions associated with artificial intelligence.

In the scientific round, 21 teams were awarded medals. The gold medals were won by the two teams from Singapore, Poland, and Letovo. Silver medals were awarded to the two teams from Hungary, the two teams from China, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Estonia. The bronze medals went to the two teams from Romania, Poland, Vietnam, Colombia, Malaysia, the two teams from Bulgaria, Iran, and Canada.

These teams will go down in history as the first medalists of the First International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad.

In the practical round, another 21 teams were awarded. The gold awards were won by the teams from Bulgaria, Poland, Australia, and the USA. Silver awards went to the teams from the UAE, Hungary, Hong Kong, Canada, Romania, Letovo, and China. Bronze awards were awarded to the teams from the Netherlands, Jordan, Tunisia, Macau, Poland, Japan, Colombia, and the two teams from Vietnam and the USA.

The practical round was held in collaboration with Maria Ilieva, one of Bulgaria’s most successful music stars. She created a special remix of one of her latest hits, “Love”, which participants were tasked with generating visualisations for using a set of AI tools. Within 4 hours, each team used their imagination combined with their knowledge of new technologies to generate a cover and video clip for Maria Ilieva’s single.

Special plaques for the best overall performance in both the scientific and practical rounds were awarded to the teams from Letovo, Poland, and Hungary.

The host of the 2025 International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad (IOAI) will be Beijing, China.

About IOAI

The International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) is a STEM-focused competition aimed at inspiring, developing, and promoting the best students in AI globally. Each year, IOAI will highlight different AI fields; this year, the focus is on Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, and Computer Vision. 

As an AI Olympiad, IOAI will actively engage in discussions with the general public about the ethical aspects and the future of AI, primarily through its practical round. The founders also aim to involve a local celebrity each year to promote IOAI and together with the students to inspire broader community dialogue about AI.

The 1st IOAI will be held in Burgas, Bulgaria August 10-14, 2024 under the Patronage of the President of Bulgaria.

Founders

The olympiad is founded by the LERAI Foundation of five Bulgarians: Lora, Elena, Rosi, Alex, and Iva.

• Lora Dineva is dedicated to education development with over ten years of experience organizing national linguistic events, including preparing teams and hosting the International Linguistics Olympiad. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics and is currently pursuing a master’s in artificial intelligence for business and finance. Professionally, Lora applies AI to improve efficiency and innovation in the government and financial sectors.

• Elena Marinova has a 25-year career in the IT sector as a co-founder of Musala Soft, now part of the IT business of the KKCG group. She is a leader in business excellence, innovation, and STEM education development. Elena is on the boards of companies, IT associations, and NGOs. As a public figure, she speaks and writes about leadership, technological trends, innovation, and education. Elena holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s in strategic management. She is the co-founder of the oldest private programming competition, CodeIT.bg (2000), and the European Junior Olympiad in Informatics (EJOI, 2017).

• Rositsa Dekova is an associate professor at the University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Her passion for linguistics began in high school when she won national computer linguistics competitions. This passion continues in her academic and research career. Rositsa holds two master’s degrees in linguistics and software engineering from the University of Plovdiv and a PhD in linguistics from NTNU, Trondheim. Over the years, she has actively participated in organizing linguistics and computational linguistics competitions and conferences. She is a member of the organizing committee for two international linguistics olympiads (2015, 2023).

• Aleksandar Velinov became interested in scientific competitions in school and won the national linguistics competition in the 12th grade. As a student, he began teaching linguistics and has been leading classes in all major schools in Sofia for over 20 years. Alex works in the IT sector but maintains his hobby, leading the Bulgarian national team almost continuously since the first International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) in 2003. Alex has organized IOL twice (2015, 2023) as chairman and has been a member of the IOL international board since 2015.

• Iva Gumnishka is a former competitor and gold medalist in mathematical linguistics from IOL. She is the founder of Humans in the Loop, a social enterprise processing data for artificial intelligence, and a board member of ForHumanity, which works in the field of AI system auditing.

Sponsors and Partners

The International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence is organized under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria, with institutional support from the Ministry of Education and Science and the Municipality of Burgas.

The Platinum sponsor is Google.

The Gold sponsors are Vivacom, MBZUAI. 

Silver sponsors are Jane Street, Ontotext, SoftUni and Leading Coding. 

Bronze sponsors are Musala Soft, Team-GPT, Anthill, DiaDraw, Non-Trivial, Sofia Tech Park, Wiser, Print.bg, FlagFlag.bg. 

Organizational partners are theNatural Sciences Olympic Teams Association, Elektrick.me, Neutral Frames, Hotel Primoretz Burgas, Pobeda, Harmonika, Sindeo, MNKnowledge, Arcana Labs. 

Academic partners are MBZUAI, Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”, INSAIT, MIT, University of Copenhagen, Sharif University of Technology, University of Oxford, Technology Innovation Institute, University of Houston, PPMG “Acad. Nikola Obreshkov”, Burgas, OU “Alexander Georgiev-Kodzhakafaliata”, Burgas, and PKPI Burgas.