History
Hong Kong first participated in IOI in 1992. In order select representatives for the Hong Kong Delegation Team, a selection test was held a few months before the competition. In the next few years, Hong Kong started sending teams to other competitions, including the SEARCC International Schools' Software Competition (ISSC) in 1993, the Software Competition for the Youths (SCY) in 1994 and the China National Olympiad in Informatics in 1995. Selection tests were separately administered for these competitions, and the purpose of each test was solely to select team members for the competitions. A considerable amount of resources were used to organize these tests. The tests were not very popular among students in Hong Kong.
In 1996, the Hong Kong Association for Computer Education, the Hong Kong Computer Society and the Education Department of Hong Kong (now the Education Bureau) jointly organized the Joint Selection Contest to replace all the selection tests. 39 students were selected as seeds for the Hong Kong teams. They received intensive training on topics like data structures and algorithms. After that, a Team Formation Test was conducted to select the Hong Kong representatives in IOI and NOI among the seeds. Another Team Formation Test was conducted for the SEARCC-ISSC and SCY.
The Joint Selection Contest was considered successful, as a group of talented students received trainings before the final team formation took place, improving the overall quality of the selected team. In addition, students who were not selected to represent Hong Kong were nevertheless given the chance to learn and prepare for other competitions in the future.
In 1997, the Joint Selection Contest was renamed as the Hong Kong Olympiad in Informatics. Prizes are awarded to students with good results in HKOI, who are then invited to join the HKOI Training Team. Due to the limit on the number of participants from each school, some schools organize their own team formation test to select students to take part in HKOI.
Read more about this topic: Hong Kong Olympiad In Informatics
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