London schoolgirl wins silver for Team India at Informatics Olympiad

A 17-year-old schoolgirl from London has earned a silver medal for Team India at the European Girls' Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI) in the Netherlands.

The Indian team also achieved its best-ever performance with two bronze medals and one honourable mention.

Aanya Goyal, a student at Alleyn's School in Dulwich, competed against top coders from 50 countries at the event in Veldhoven. Goyal, who is passionate about mathematics, used her problem-solving skills to tackle the challenges presented to the teams.

“I feel very proud to have won a silver medal for India at the Girls' Olympiad in Informatics at a time when competitive programming is emerging as one of the most popular sports all over the world, but especially in India,” said Goyal.

“The contest consisted of two sessions of five hours each and in each session, we were given four problems to solve – each containing several sub-tasks. The problems are complex algorithmic design and coding implementation challenges. Five hours go by very quickly and is not quite enough time,” she shared.

According to EGOI rules, the implemented code must pass a set of sub-tasks within two to four seconds, requiring participants to excel in mathematics and creative problem-solving to deliver efficient coding quickly.

“Once I made the team, I was fortunate to be part of the best team in the world. My teammates – two Nehas and Mansi, and our team leader Sonia ma'am – are the most amazing people,” said Goyal, dedicating her medal to Team India's coaching and support staff.

The team was mentored by Paras Kasmalkar, an International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) silver medallist.

“When you have such support, then there is no choice but to prepare well and to fight for the full 10 hours, from the first minute to the last,” added Goyal.

Goyal, who enjoys crosswords, Kakuro puzzles, and chess, first found success with mathematics Olympiads and has also participated in the Linguistics Olympiad. She trained for many years to tackle combinatorics and number theory problems and to decipher languages, applying the same problem-solving mindset. With EGOI, she embraced a new challenge that involved problem design and implementation.

“I want to study mathematics and computer science at university. While maths remains the primary interest, computing and other applications of maths offer an opportunity to use my problem-solving skills to make the world a better place,” she said of her future plans.

“That is serious business for me and not a cliché. I am keen to have a career where I can utilise my skills to make a real impact. I also feel a certain weight of responsibility as a girl doing well in maths and computing Olympiads because sadly when it comes to elite competitions in these subjects, men still comprise 95 per cent of the field; that needs to change,” she added.

Goyal believes more girls should be involved in designing future technologies and hopes to be a role model to help overcome societal biases.

As a “proud Indian” living in the UK, she finds motivation in songs like ‘Chak De India’ and ‘Ziddi Dil’ from Bollywood biopics 'Chak De! India' and 'Mary Kom.'

With her silver medal, she now hopes to see Team India increase their medals haul at the ongoing Paris Olympics 2024.

“People can dismiss me as being over-optimistic but if you cannot dream big, then you cannot win big,” she said.

(With inputs from PTI)