Congratulations to Year 11 student, Ava Heath Williams, who has been selected to represent New Zealand at the European Girls' Olympiad in Informatics in Germany.

The European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI) is an international competition for young women interested in Computer Science. It is one of several international science Olympiads held annually around the world and is hosted by a different nation each year.

Exceptional high school students from various countries compete in the prestigious competitions to sharpen their programming skills.

On each of the two contest days, contestants participate in a five hour exam and need to complete four tasks. Each task is a difficult algorithmic problem and contestants are required to solve these by writing bug-free programs. The program is then evaluated and scored based on both efficiency and correctness.

Ava is one of four students representing New Zealand. In order to qualify, Ava and her team mates, entered a Programming Contest 4 Girls (PC4G) competition. This is a New Zealand-based initiative aimed at encouraging high school girls to consider careers in computer programming and technology. Ava attended a training camp, run by the New Zealand Olympiad in Informatics and was chosen to represent New Zealand. Individual selection was highly contested.

Ava will travel, all expenses paid, to Bonn, Germany to compete against other like-minded students from around the world at the European Girls' Olympiad in Informatics during the July school holidays.

We wish her all the best for her endeavours.