2024-08-03 08:45:38
Bulgaria welcomes nearly 200 students and young people from all over the world, who will participate in the first International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence, created by Bulgarians. 44 teams have confirmed participation in the competition, two of which are Bulgarian. This was announced by the Minister of Education and Science Prof. Galin Tsokov during a press conference where the world competition was presented. This was announced by the press center of the Ministry of Education.
“This is one of the largest newly created Olympiads related to artificial intelligence and STEM sciences,” said Minister Tsokov. According to him, Bulgaria preserves its traditions of creating international Olympiads in the fastest developing fields of knowledge. “After the two olympiads in informatics and that in linguistics, this is the fourth international olympiad that we are creating”, noted Prof. Tsokov. Thus, the world will turn its eyes to Burgas in the period between August 9 and 15, and the fact that Google is its main sponsor is indicative of the significance of the event. The host of the event is the Burgas Professional Science and Mathematics High School “Acad. N. Obreshkov”.
“The field of artificial intelligence is of particular importance for the education system and this is a topic we are working on at the Ministry of Education and Science. At the end of last year, together with experts and IT specialists, we prepared guidelines for artificial intelligence to support schools,” said Minister Tsokov. According to him, artificial intelligence is also included in the curricula of a number of professional classes in technological schools and science and mathematics high schools. It is also a focus in the projects of some of the innovative schools.
To date, our students have won 58 medals from international Olympiads, with competitions still to come until the end of the year, it became clear during the event. “I hope that our teams at the Artificial Intelligence Olympiad will please us with a strong performance,” said Prof. Tsokov.
The artificial intelligence competition consists of two segments – scientific and practical. “The main focus is on machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision. These are the most widely advocated topics in both academia and business. In this part, serious research cases will be considered,” explained Elena Marinova, who is a co-founder of the competition.
In the hands-on round, students will have the opportunity to work with an artificial intelligence application of their choice and will be tasked with creating a widely understood product – audio, video or image.
Leading scientists from world universities participate in the organization, compilation of the tasks and the jury. Some of them are the Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi, the University of Copenhagen and Oxford, as well as the INSAIT Institute at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.
“The Olympics also includes a conference part, which will be held on August 12. “Teams and guests will have the opportunity to hear exciting lectures from leading speakers and participate in practical sessions on current topics in artificial intelligence,” said Alexander Velinov, who is the other founder of the Olympiad. A large part of the classes will also be open to external visitors. .
The two Bulgarian teams that will participate in the competition have been preparing since June. “These include some of our best young researchers and linguists. They are prepared by renowned scientists in the field,” said Ioan Salambashev, who is the main leader of the Bulgarian teams.
The executive director of the Association of Olympic Teams in Natural Sciences, Vulkan Goranov, specified that countries from six continents will participate in the upcoming Olympics. There are already inquiries from other countries looking to host the competition next.
At the end of the event, Minister Tsokov thanked the organizers and the Municipality of Burgas, which is hosting the tournament, for their efforts. The Ministry of Education and Science is the main institutional partner, and the event is held under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria. Partners and sponsors of the Olympics are institutions, non-governmental organizations and companies from all over the world.
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The founder of the Olympics is the LERAI Foundation, which is backed by five Bulgarians:
Laura Dineva has over ten years of experience in organizing national linguistic events, including team preparation and hosting of the International Linguistics Olympiad. It applies artificial intelligence to improve efficiency and innovation in the government and financial sectors.
Rositsa Dekova is an associate professor at Paisii Hilendarski University in Plovdiv. Over the years, he actively participated in the organization of competitions and conferences in linguistics and computational linguistics. He is a member of the organizing committee of two international olympiads in linguistics.
Elena Marinova has a 25-year career in the IT sector as co-founder of Musala Soft, now part of the IT business of KKCG group. She is a leader in development and excellence in business, innovation and STEM education.
Alexander Velinov teaches linguistics and has been leading classes in all major schools in Sofia for more than 20 years. He works in the IT sector, and since 2003 he has been the head of our national linguistics team almost continuously.
Iva Gumnishka is a former competitor and gold medalist of the International Linguistics Olympiad. He is the founder of a social enterprise that processes data for artificial intelligence.