ko_osaga's blog

IOI 2021 will be held online
By ko_osaga, history, 3 years ago, In English

TL;DR: IOI 2021 was planned to held on-site with strong safety measures. Today, IC announced to turn it into an on-line contest (I guess due to travel difficulties). The IC is exploring the possibility of an optional on-site contest.

https://www.facebook.com/ioinformatics.org/posts/458218468862628

Dear Friends of IOI,

I hope you are doing well as COVID-19 is still rampaging all over the world. But as vaccines are becoming available, I hope we can all soon get back to our normal life before the pandemic.

The IC held the Winter meeting in late February. We have the following important information regarding IOI 2021 to share with the community.

First, IOI 2021, organized by Singapore, will still be an online competition much like the previous year. The competition week will fall between mid to late June.

Second, competition aside, in an effort to bring back some normalcy, IOI business will be conducted as usual. This includes collection of registration fees and election of new committee members.

Third, the host and the IC are still exploring possibilities to socially host some teams who can and are willing to travel to Singapore, subject to various Air Travel requirements and COVID-19 safe management measures. Such teams would still sit the contest online from within Singapore, using their own computers. Detailed plans will be announced by the host as they become available.

I hope this information will allow you to start making plans for selecting teams to participate in IOI 2021. The IC and the host team will continue to held online meetings leading up to the IOI in June. We will keep you all updated as things develop further. If you have any questions, please contact the IOI Secretariat at [email protected].

Stay safe and best wishes, Greg Lee IOI President

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Comments Comments (22)
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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +199 Vote: I do not like it

:'(

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

;(

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -21 Vote: I do not like it

fuckin pussies

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

    Come on... at least everyone gets to participate. Perhaps that's what they are afraid of — countries forbidding people to leave the country.

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +112 Vote: I do not like it

      While I can't speak for the entire IC, here is my reasoning on the matter, which would hopefully provide some context behind the choice.

      • The survey was sent shortly before IC meeting to all last year's team and deputy leaders. While you could see some support for onsite competition it definitely scaled in the direction of online competition due to uncertainties in many countries. A non-single-digit-amount of countries told us in February that they would be unable to go should anything happen onsite in June.
      • Business travel is still a thing. However, with heavy restrictions. At this moment in time if I have a valid reason to go to Singapore from Latvia, for example, I am required to sit 14-day quarantine in Singapore and 10-day quarantine back in Latvia. With the 7-day event, this is a month-long commitment. While it's easy to have that commitment as a student, it gets very tricky for everyone else, and this will also reduce the amount of delegations who would be able to travel, should such restrictions still be in place by June.
      • A portion of contestants are minors. Possibilities of parents and/or ministries refusing to send minors to Singapore is a real thing.
      • For various reasons, decision needed to be made now. At some point in time we would have to go back to onsite IOIs and quite possibly take a hit in a number of participating countries. However, at this point in time, it's impossible to predict what will happen in June with any certainty. If we had an onsite IOI, I estimate that we may have anywhere from 25% to 80% countries participating. For proposed onsite event, small number of countries is not an issue, but for the contest itself, it certainly is. While the range is so wide and uncertainty is still so large, it felt utterly irresponsible to me to make any other decision.
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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +25 Vote: I do not like it

    Glad to hear that Croatia is interested in travelling to Singapore should an onsite event happen in the end!

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      3 years ago, # ^ |
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      Most countries are interested in an onsite contest.

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        3 years ago, # ^ |
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        This is not a conclusion that was surfaced to IC from the surveying of team and deputy leaders shortly before IC meeting.

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          3 years ago, # ^ |
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          Well, I believe most students are indeed interested in traveling, but the same can't be said about most deputy leaders or leaders.

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            3 years ago, # ^ |
              Vote: I like it +35 Vote: I do not like it

            Yeah, I'm not interested in traveling. In my country, schools and universities are closed and it would not be possible to even organize an onsite national contest in June, so traveling to Singapore would be an absurd idea.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +80 Vote: I do not like it

The IC is exploring the possibility of an optional on-site contest.

I wouldn't be summarising this as an "onsite contest". While more details would be released by the host when they become available, the intention is that should anything develop further from this proposal, there would still be only one contest and it will be online, as outlined by "such teams would still sit the contest online from within Singapore, using their own computers".

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +30 Vote: I do not like it

    Come on, why is this downvoted? It's just explaining the situation, it's not someone's personal opinion or anything like that.

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

:(

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +122 Vote: I do not like it

Is there a possibility of the online IOI being postponed to the later months of the summer? Are participants getting the worst of both worlds(close to exams & online)?

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    3 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    In last month's message from the hosts it was stated:

    Singapore is also NOT considering to postpone the planned onsite IOI2021 any further because:

    ...

    • last year when we agreed to postpone the onsite event, most of our host organizing committee members have agreed to make time for 20-27 June 2021 new time slot but most of the members may not be available afterwards

    I'm afraid that this argument is still in-play for the online competition as it still requires a large team from the host committee to host a successful online IOI. So the fact that the competition has moved online does not necessarily mean that it's any easier to change the dates unfortunately.

    I will keep your point in mind and will try to inquire the hosts about this given the opportunity. But, personally, I would not expect the possibility of changing the date announced last year to gain any serious traction unless there are significant reasons behind it (for example, if a lot of teams would be unable to hold their selections for IOI in June).

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +91 Vote: I do not like it

Online ICPC 2020 next please?

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

:(

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3 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +29 Vote: I do not like it

An update from the host was posted to ioi-announce@. The text is provided in the spoiler below.

Update
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