Preface

           Ladies and gentlemen, dear students,

at present, in almost every country of the world, informatics ranks among the fastest developing fields of education at all levels and in all kinds of educational institutions. It is in the best interests of any intelectually and industrially developed country - and the more so for any country aspiring to membership in the European community - to provide key conditions for the development of IT, especially: sufficient access to an internet - connected computer for every high school, college and university student and sufficient opportunity for teachers, researchers and students to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for using IT in teaching and research. The Central European Olympiads in Informatics provide an opportunity for all participating countries to find out whether the quality of informatics teaching in their secondary schools is improving or deteriorating. The ninth CEOI will take place in the Slovak city of Košice at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University. We look upon this as a tribute to the Slovak informatics school and especially as a sign of appreciation of the results obtained by Slovak high school teams at international informatics olympiads in the preceding years and for the quality of informatics teaching at Slovak high schools and universities which had contributed to these results. We are sure that our team will add to the results of their predecessors and will, in spite of the strong competition which we expect from foreign CEOI 2002 participants, bring home many medals.

It is a special pleasure to welcome at the CEOI 2002 in Košice numerous teams of young informaticists from Central European countries, their leaders and also the representatives of the managing body of the CEOI. I wish every success to the foreign competitors, a pleasant working atmosphere to the Slovak and foreign members of the jury and to all participants a pleasant stay in the eastern part of our beautiful Slovakia.

          

           Dear contestants, dear guests,

I am very pleased to congratulate the Institute of Informatics of the Šafárik University in Košice for preparing and organizing an outstanding and interesting event of Central European dimension.

In the nine years' history of the Central European Olympiad in Informatics this is the second time it is being held in the Slovak Republic and the first time in the newly formed Košice self-governing region. For me it is a great honour to be the head of the Košice self-governing region and to have the opportunity of addressing you on this festive occasion.

I am convinced that for all grammar school teams this event will provide an attractive, colourful and suitable occasion to compare your skills on an international level.

I have a very close relationship to informatics as I was engaged in it in my previous professional career. Informatics forms logical thinking, responsibility and self-discipline regardless of age. I appreciate very much the fact that this competition is aimed at the students of grammar schools. Your participation in this competition can be a very good and positive starting point in your preparation for further university study. For Eastern Slovakia it is also an opportunity to greet future skillful system analysts for whom there will be numerous opportunities in our region.

The present high development potential of the Košice self-governing region is backed not only by its geographical position and natural resources but as well by its responsible and dedicated inhabitants and the high number of educated, ambitious and expertly well prepared young people.

I wish to all participants of this outstanding Olympiad a very good time in our country and to all young informaticians an interesting and rewarding future in this attractive and dynamically developing field.

          

           Ladies and gentlemen, dear participants of CEOI 2002,

it is my pleasure and privilege to welcome you at our University. We will make every effort to make your stay here pleasant and to ensure good conditions for both the competition and leisure.

First - having Slovak students compete with their friends from other Central European countries and coming up among the winners (as I am sure they will :-)) is a good advertisement of the level of informatics teaching in our school system; this may attract foreign students to our schools.

Second - it brings also better chances for our students of being admitted to prestigious foreign universities (this is no mere speculation: look at the students who have, in past years, obtained good results in this and other international informatics olympiads; you will find many of them studying at these universities).

Third - competitions like this one do not test just programming skills; to be successful, you have to be able to solve unexpected problems, problems to which there is no standard solution - and this is exactly the situation a top specialist in many fields encounters every day. Having our companies (not only software houses - many successful participants have gone on to study e.g. management) staffed by people of this kind will give them a better chance to be successful on the international market.

What does all this sum up to? In a few years we are going to need capable managers, researchers, technologists who will use leading edge technologies to solve our problems - some of which we do not know about yet. When the CEOI contest starts some of these people may well be sitting right there among you. So why not help them to a good start? Why not do everything we can to provide good conditions for them, to test their skills as well as enable them to carry with them pleasant memories of our University and of our beautiful city?

Please let me assure you that I personally and all our staff will be glad to do just that. Once more, welcome and good luck.