V.M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine together with Uzhhorod National University and Kyiv Academic University launched a new direction - competitions through research to increase interest in science and popularize scientific areas. Yes, the first such competition ended on May 8, and today the winners were awarded, who were able to optimally solve the well-known problem of a salesman. In fact, a new type of competition, different from the Olympics, has been launched: participants have a longer period to solve a scientific problem. The first task in the martial law in Ukraine was symbolic and concerned the search for the best route through cities throughout Ukraine. This idea inspired many: a total of 172 participants from Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan registered for the competition; representatives of Spain and Greece also joined. A total of 14,489 solutions were submitted.
On May 10, the co-organizers gathered during a video conference to summarize the competition, award the winners and outline further areas of cooperation.
Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Oleksandr Khimich noted that such measures to promote research should be supported and extended to other interesting and innovative areas, such as artificial intelligence, neural network technologies, quantum computing, cybersecurity and others. "These are the areas whose synergy will not only help restore the destroyed economic space of Ukraine (and all this will have to deal with in the context of rebuilding Ukraine), but also allow to move to the rails of tomorrow's latest technologies in the world, ensure rapid development of security and defense the state ", - the academician Alexander Khimich emphasized.
Oleksandr Mitsa, Head of the Department of Information Control Systems and Technologies of the Faculty of Information Technologies of Uzhhorod National University, noted that the co-organizers of the event have always been the initiators of involving young scientists in solving problems. and apply more methods. Such competitions should be more popular and involve as many pupils and students from around the world. Oleksandr Mitsa thanked the active students of Uzhhorod National University who collected the prize fund of the competition, thanked the Internet portal "Eolymp", which perfectly accompanied the competition, and expressed hope that other institutions will continue to join the organization of the competition.
Professor of Kyiv Academic University Vitaliy Shadura noted that now students are more interested in engineering programming and pay less attention to mathematical methods, but it is important that students have quality mathematical training, good knowledge of algorithm theory and optimization theory. in the application of digital technologies, especially in the applied sciences. Professor of the same university Oleksandra Antonyuk added that holding such an event in the current conditions is very important. The competition, given the chosen task, is not purely scientific, but has practical results, so it is important that students learn on practical assignments, and the organizers cooperate in different areas.
Petro Stetsiuk, Head of the Department of the VM Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, emphasized that the competition is a good opportunity to test your knowledge in a certain field. And the fact that such events are co-organized by academic institutes allows students to learn more about the activities of these institutions and become more interested in certain scientific fields, complete a master's degree and possibly enter graduate school.
Representatives of Georgia and Azerbaijan were also interested in the competition, so well-known professors from these countries were invited to the award ceremony. Theodore Zarqua, a professor at the European University in Tbilisi, said he was impressed by the number of participants and their results. The professor from Georgia agreed with the organizers that the strength of the state correlates with how science is developed in this country, so holding such events is really important. Theodore Zarqua noted that the brotherly Ukrainian people for Georgians are now showing great nobility, love for their homeland, and the development of academic science is necessary for victory, for the prosperity of the homeland. As a representative of the Eurasian Olympic Movement, Professor T. Zarqua expressed hope that Ukrainian teams will be able to continue to participate in programming competitions - the International Student Olympiad ICPC and the Open Championship of the South Caucasus.
Professor of the ADA University in Baku Mikhail Medvedev expressed hope that such competitions in the future will stimulate participants to acquire new knowledge, find new ideas, new solutions. The professor stressed that he will share his work on solving problems in Olympic programming with all interested parties, so he makes the materials public.
Serhiy Zhukovskyi, associate professor of Zhytomyr Ivan Franko State University and administrator of the Eolymp website, noted that the competition is not only of Olympic but also scientific significance, as the proposed task is practical and the selected tests are based on Ukrainian cities. , with their real coordinates. Therefore, the best solutions have solved the optimization problem. Serhiy Zhukovsky noted that this type of competition - with a research task - was held for the first time on the Eolymp platform.
Taking into account the results of the competition, the organizers decided to divide the first and second places between two participants: Konstantin Lutsenko, third year student of the Faculty of Cybernetics, Taras Shevchenko National University, winner of the All-Ukrainian Olympiad in Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, winner of SEERC-2022; Dmytro Mayor, a second-year student at the Faculty of Information Technology of Uzhhorod National University, winner of the All-Ukrainian Olympiads in Informatics and Information Technologies, winner of the Karazin University Programming Cup team competition in the freshmen league (2020). The third place was won by Yegor Vaskonyan, a 9th grade student of Kharkiv Physics and Mathematics Lyceum № 27, a participant in the All-Ukrainian Olympiads in Informatics.
Congratulations to the winners!
Significantly, the prize fund of the competition was collected by the best students of Computer Science at Uzhgorod University - joined by Sergei Loshak, Vladislav Tsimbota, Richard Wolfsberger, Anastasia Tovtin, Ruslana Korol, Julia Trofimenko, Roman Pitsura, Yuri Popovych, Alexander.
The report from the journalists who were also present at the meeting can be viewed
at: https://mediacenter.uzhnu.edu.ua/news/v-ukraini-uspishno-startuvav-novatorskyj-proiekt-iz-zaluchennia-molodi-do-naukovykh-doslidzhen/2022-05-10-51455