NEWSLETTER

No. 3 - Sunday

10th September 2017

PROF. KRASIMIR MANEV:

“COMPUTER, TEACHER AND ACCESS TO TRAINING MATERIALS - THAT'S ALL

A KID NEEDS TO GET IT STARTED. THE REST IS A MATTER OF MOTIVATION

AND WORK.”

No.3 | 10th September 2017 |

ejoi.org

T he very first IOI was held in Pravets in

1989 on Pravetz-8 computers. Then they

had to solve one task in four hours. The

difference since then and now is not only the

technology used, capacity and speed of coding.

Now kids start out coding a way much earlier.

But they all have been very hardworking and am-

bitious – back then, and now as well.

WE ASKED THE OTHERS, WE ASK YOU AS WELL—TO

TELL US WHY EJOI IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT EVENT

FOR YOU, AND FOR ALL OF US?

Amongst the 26 gold medalists at the Interna-

tional Olympiad in Informatics, 20 of them are

Europeans. The main goal of eJOI is exactly this:

to “boggle” Europe a little, to wake up. This is the

place where it all began, Europe is the one that

has given birth to these Olympiads, the potential

is concentrated here. As you can see - Russia,

Poland, Romania, Bulgaria - these are elite coun-

tries, there are many clever programmers, we

cannot allow the Asian competition to „squeeze”

us..

We have dreamed about this Olympiad for a long

time. In 2007 Serbia made the first Junior Balkan

Olympiad, then we did, but it turned out that we

cannot make JBOI every year because not all of

the Balkan countries prepare competitors in that

early age. And after all, not all of us are ready to

bear the costs of a Olympiad. Thus the idea to

expand the range was born - to attract more

countries and to initiate a European format. We

can show that children in this age can write pro-

grams and are capable of many things. We want

to make wider space for Europe on the world

map. The world needs programmers and their

demand is yet to grow, including in Bulgaria. All

the assumptions that everything will soon be en-

coded is not true! This is only the beginning!

The team that worked on the program was not

big, but was well organized (I use the moment to

convey my gratitude to the colleagues from the

National Commission for the Olympiads in Infor-

matics, the National Olympic Teams in Natural

Sciences Association, Musala soft and School A &

B). I think we did it, but how well – the partici-

pants would tell you better!

YOU ARE ALSO AN ACADEMIC LECTURER. YOUR

ALUMNI TODAY ARE ACHIEVING ENVIABLE SUCCESS-

ES.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE?

The feeling of being able to learn even a single

person of something useful, for himself and for

the society, is difficult to describe. It is a complex

of excitement, pride, awareness of the fulfilled

debt and hope - that despite the huge advances

in technology, including those in the field of

teaching, the role of the teacher will remain ir-

revocable.

Because one good teacher doesn't just "pass

on” his knowledge, he builds personalities.

Prof. Krassimir Manev graduated from Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI) at the Sofia University with mathematics, with specialization in

theoretical foundations of informatics. From 1976

to 2013, he taught Discrete mathematics, algo-rithms and programming at FMI at SU, and since 2013 he also teaches at New Bulgarian University (NBU). He is an author of more than 75 scientific publications and over 30 textbooks for students and university students. He has repeatedly been head of the Bulgarian teams for participation in

International and Balkan Olympiads. He is a mem-ber of the International Committee of IOI in the periods 2001 – 2003 and 2006 – 2013 and is pres-ident of IOI in 2009, and from 2014 to 2017.

DIGITAL SKILLS GAP IS STILL A MAJOR CHAL-

LENGE FOR EUROPE DESPITE THE INCREASING

EFFORTS TO ADDRESS IT.

IN YOUR VIEW, WHAT MIGHT BE THE GOOD RECI-

PE TO TACKLE THE PROBLEM, ESPECIALLY ON THE

SIDE OF EDUCATION?

My answer is clear. I have stated this many

years ago, I did not change my opinion since

that time and probably I’ll dedicate the rest of

my life to plead for implementing this – regu-

lar teaching of Informatics and Information

Technologies from the first to very last year of

school education. The Olympiad that we start

today is one of the arguments in favor of the

idea! I hope that the authorities from Europe-

an institutions will understand what I’m plead-

ing for and will support our efforts – in general

and in particular to make eJOI a tradition.

Computer, teacher and access to training ma-

terials - that's all a kid needs to get it started.

The rest is a matter of motivation and work.

WHAT RESULTS DO YOU EXPECT AT THE OLYMPI-

AD?

I follow the progress of children in this age

(participants this year should be born after the

end of 2001). Even in the early years of infor-

matics’ competitions for students in Bulgaria, I

was among the initiators of the separation of

this age group of the older students. And I

have to admit, for all these years the chil-

dren's level has become phenomenal. After

the end of eJOI, ask any experienced pro-

grammer to solve the tasks we give to these

children and to evaluate their difficulty.

My expectation is eJOI to become traditional

(we already have orders to organize it in 2018

and 2019) and to help achieve our goals – a

much more serious attitude of the European

countries and institutions regarding the infor-

matics training of students from earlier age.

WHAT IS THE MOST VALUABLE ADVICE YOU HAVE

RECEIVED WHEN YOU WERE THEIR AGE AND YOU

STILL REMEMBER TO THIS DAY?

What my mother has been able to convey to

me in childhood and is still valid for me is:

Only things achieved with hardwork can

bring real satisfaction.

Unfortunately these days I am increasingly

observing young people (and not so young)

who are furiously striving for success – finan-

cial, social – without any efforts given. And

what is even scarier to me, is that somebody

is letting them do it. This is probably the main

cause of many of the problems in our lives.

Things are getting real: the eJOI Initiative Committee at the official Opening Ceremony this Friday.

08th September 2017. From right to left - Krasimir Manev, Biserka Yovcheva, Alexey Hristov,

Elena Marinova

No.3 | 10th September 2017 |

ejoi.org

TOMORROW’S SIGHT: SOFIA CITY

BEFORE YOU GO THERE…

Sofia is the largest city and the capital of Bulgaria, as well as the 15th largest city in the Eu-

ropean Union with a population of 1,291,591 people (2011 Census). Sofia citizens account

for 83.5% of the population of Sofia district and for 17.5% of the population of Bulgar-

ia. Sofia is a cosmopolitan city of different nationalities and cultures. They elegantly coexist

in the historic downtown, which has become a kind of open-air museum with preserved re-

mains of ancient civilizations.

Photo / karolis.jay

No.3 | 10th September 2017 |

ejoi.org

CONTEST DAY 1 : CHECK!

“So far EJOI has been pretty fun for me,

the food is good and the contest on the

first day was well organised so I have no

complaints, nevertheless the tasks were

quite challenging. I look forward to our trip

to Plovdiv so that I can truly experience

Bulgarian culture for myself.”

- ADRIAN MLADENIĆ GROBELNIK, CON-

TESTANT, HUNGARY

“For me and programming,

it all started when I was

still in 3rd grade. I was

really interested in how we

can do things with a com-

puter, the same things we

usually do with our minds.”

- KONSTANTIN KAMENOV, CONTESTANT, BULGARIA TEAM 1

infront of BloombergTV

Contest Day No.2 is tomorrow! Don’t forget to follow the live results on the scoreboard on our

website - ejoi.org !

Meanwhile you can challenge yourself doing the practice session tasks from Friday. Fin them

*here*

No.3 | 10th September 2017 |

ejoi.org

W hen does learning become a game?

When can you touch and smell science,

jumping boldly with both feet into a

new world, experimenting and getting surprising

results? When you are able to dream.

The children's science center Muzeiko is created on the model of children’s museums in the Unit-

ed States, taking into account the results of the

latest research on children’s neurological devel-

opment and methods for teaching children of

different ages. All of Muzeiko’s content was de-

veloped by leading scientists, educators and de-

signers and is in line with contemporary

trends in education. The exhibits are based on

the theory of learning through play and ap-

plied activities, multiple intelligences, sug-

gestopedia, and other techniques for acceler-

ated learning and expanding children’s poten-

tial.

Science can be both educational and fun!

During a laboratory last year an amazed kid

said: “Wow, the science is indeed magic and

the magic is science!”. We believe this, and so

do our eJOI participants that had the chance

to take a look at the exhibitions in America for

Bulgaria’s children’s museum. Paleonthology,

planetarium, plants from past geologi-

cal epochs, Bulgarian rocks are only a few to

name!

After a hard day of competing, eJOI teams

chilled out after first contest day, smiled and

waved for the camera and the regular group

photo and it was about time for some fun! Col-

orful games and entertainment included count-

ing your weight on Mars, simulated climbing on

skyscrapers’ facilities, creating weather forecasts

and so much more.

MUZEIKO MEETS #EJOI2017

No.3 | 10th September 2017 |

ejoi.org