Romania officially participated with two teams at the first edition of the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI), held in Burgas, Bulgaria, from August 9-15, 2024, under the patronage of the President of Bulgaria. The competition brought together nearly 200 students from 32 countries and territories, organized into 41 teams, marking Romania's official debut in the most important international AI competition for high school students.
Both Romanian teams achieved notable results at their first international participation:
Team 1 — Bronze medal in the scientific round — Coordinator: PhD Student Miruna Andreea Zăvelcă – University of Bucharest:
Rareș-Ștefan Stanciu – International Computer Science High School Constanța, Luca Ștefan Nicolae – International Computer Science High School București, Laura Moldovan – National Computer Science College "Tudor Vianu", București, Mircea Maxim Rebengiuc – National Computer Science College "Tudor Vianu", București.
Team 2 — Bronze medal in the theoretical round and silver medal in the practical round — Coordinator: Professor Daniel Popa – National College "Aurel Vlaicu", Orăștie:
Victor Botnaru – International Computer Science High School Constanța, Nicolas-Ștefan Bratoveanu – National College "Vasile Alecsandri", Galați, Ștefan-Alexandru Dumitrașcu – Theoretical High School "Grigore Moisil", Timișoara, Mihai-Adrian Mocanu – National Computer Science College "Tudor Vianu", București.
The International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (IOAI) is an international scientific competition for high school students, dedicated to the field of artificial intelligence. Each country or territory can participate with a maximum of two teams, each consisting of up to four students and one coordinator.
IOAI is structured into three distinct rounds: individual contest, team challenge, and GAITE contest. The individual contest takes place over two days, with participants having approximately six hours per day to solve two or three problems, some of which are continuations of themes received one month before the competition.
The team challenge changes its format annually: in 2024, competitors worked with artificial intelligence tools for image and video generation, creating AI-assisted artistic projects consisting of a music video and cover art for a musical piece.
Student selection was carried out among winners of national olympiads in mathematics, computer science, cybersecurity, linguistics, and related STEM competitions. Approximately 120 students benefited from centralized training during the selection stage.
Scientific preparation was provided by university faculty and experts from the University of Bucharest, National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA București, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, West University of Timișoara, and "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iași. The scientific committee was coordinated by Associate Professor Dr. Marius Popescu from the University of Bucharest.
The Romanian Computer Science Teachers' Union, with support from sponsors Bitdefender and Google, organized the training camp and financed Romania's participation in the competition. The Olympiad was founded by LERAI Foundation, with Aleksandar Velinov as president and the board of directors led by Elena Marinova.
Romania was among the first countries to introduce artificial intelligence as an optional subject in pre-university education. In 2022, the Ministry of Education approved the first official artificial intelligence curriculum, developed by specialists from UPIR, Romanian Artificial Intelligence Association, Google DeepMind UK, and Bitdefender, through Order no. 4049 of June 14, 2022. The optional discipline is titled "Introduction to machine learning as a branch of artificial intelligence".
In 2024, the National Artificial Intelligence Olympiad was officialized, and since 2025 it has been functioning fully at county and national levels. Selection of the representative team is carried out in coordination with the University of Bucharest and a national consortium of universities.
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