More than 300 participants and guests from 40 countries around the world walked the red carpet to the accompaniment of the Burgas Brass Orchestra and entered the DT “Adriana Budevska” for the opening of the First International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence – IOAI, which will be hosted by Burgas until August 15.
Guests at the ceremony were the Minister of Education and Science Prof. Dr. Galin Tsokov, the Regional Governor Prof. Dr. Maria Neikova, the Mayor of Burgas Dimitar Nikolov, the Deputy Mayor for Education Mihail Nenov, people’s representatives and municipal councilors.
The opening ceremony started with a stage performance realized by elektrick.me and continued with the special participation of the star of the contemporary Bulgarian music scene, Maria Ilieva.
“This is the third significant international Olympiad of which Bulgaria is the founder, after the Informatics Olympiad in 1989 and the Linguistics Olympiad in 2003. That is why I want to congratulate its creators. The participants are young people who are starting out, but can also gain experience and to contribute their scientific achievements to the future of the world. I congratulate the Municipality of Burgas for the first hosting, without which the Olympics would not have happened. Good luck to all participants and may the Olympiad bring you great experiences and new friendships,” shared the Minister of Education and Culture Prof. Galin Tsokov.
“Burgas is a city that has always placed a high priority on the development of technology, training and education. This is a historic competition because it is being held for the first time in the world. A nation that puts knowledge, technology and development at the top – it will succeed. Thank you to everyone who believed in us and helped make it happen. In the next five days, competitions on topics related to artificial intelligence will be launched here. I am convinced that you will like our city and will come back here again,” said Mayor Dimitar Nikolov.
“I know you’re all here for the gold medals, but before that, you’ll make new friendships that will last a lifetime, that will make you true citizens of the world, that will make the world a better place for all of us.” Because you know that building bridges is more important than setting boundaries, not only between people, but between people and artificial intelligence, and this is only for the good of the world and humanity,” shared Elena Marinova – founder of IOAI.
“Artificial intelligence is something that many people around the world are currently wondering what it is. We will all find out the answer in the coming days. I hope our participants will help us understand how to use it properly and ethically to make our lives easier. Because the world is changing very quickly and we have to follow it, we are here, we are part of the future”, added IOAI co-founder Alexander Velinov.
Immediately after that, all the teams were introduced one by one, and the founders of the Olympiad and the members of the jury welcomed them from the stage.
The opening ceremony continued with the swearing in of the members of the jury and the participants of the upcoming competition and ended with Bulgarian folk dances performed by the Professional Folk Ensemble “Strandja”.
A total of 44 teams from 40 countries from 6 continents, two of which are Bulgarian, will take part in the Olympics in the seaside city in the coming days. Each IOAI team consists of four students who, with the support of a supervisor, work on the topics of the Olympiad in the weeks before the competition, and are prepared for their participation since June by renowned scientists in the field.
Today, August 11, from 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. at the PPMG “Acad. Nikola Obreshkov” and OU “Alexander Georgiev Kodjakafaliyata” will take place the first competition day, in which the participants will measure knowledge in the scientific stage with a focus on machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision.
The following day, August 12, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., an International Scientific Conference will be held in the Congress Center, when the teams and guests of the Olympiad will have the opportunity to listen to exciting lectures and participate in practical sessions /workshops/ on current topics of artificial intelligence. After the conference, the participants will explore the sights of Burgas.
The next day – August 13, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., the participants will test their skills in the practical round of the Olympiad, having the opportunity to work with an artificial intelligence application of their choice and tasked with creating a widely understandable product – audio, video or image. After that, the students will travel to the Cultural-Tourist Complex “Chengene Skele”, where they will learn about fishing traditions and customs.
On August 14, at 2:30 p.m., the ceremony for awarding the teams and closing the International Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence will take place in the Congress Center.
The main partner is Google, the main sponsor is Vivacom, and the host of the event is the Burgas Professional Science and Mathematics High School “Acad. N. Obreshkov”.
The event is organized by the LERAI Foundation, with the support of the Municipality of Burgas, the Ministry of Education and Science and 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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