In September 2020, the IOI - International Informatics Olympiad world final took place, with 343 young people from 87 countries, completely virtual, due to the COVID pandemic19. Brazilian students took their tests at Unicamp and Fortaleza.
The national phase of IOI, OBI - Olimpíadas Brasileiras de Informática, has been coordinated since 1999 by Prof. Ricardo Anido from the Unicamp Computing Institute. Prof. Anido has been working tirelessly for OBI ever since, without prejudice to his activities at Unicamp, in all stages of OBI. There are dozens of days and nights, coordinating tests, communicating with school principals throughout Brazil and, finally, organizing the final phase of OBI.
This final phase, the “Olympic week at Unicamp”, is the grand prize that many students dream of. The best placed in each modality and level participate in this stage and, since 1999, it has been held at Unicamp. They are 11 to 18 year olds from all over Brazil. Over these years, there were about 500 thousand young people (220 thousand girls) participating and, always, with Prof. I live in the leadership.
In addition to his coordination with OBI, Prof. Anido is also one of the key players in the Programming Marathon of the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC), a national event that brings together teams of students from higher education courses in Brazil. The best placed are invited to participate in the world final of the ICPC - International Collegiate Programming Contest, a traditional event that has been held since the 1970s. Brazil has participated in this competition since 1997, and Prof. Anido was the coach of the first Brazilian team to participate in the ICPC. Since then, his participation has evolved from a team technician to the coordinator of the problem-making committee for all of Latin America, an activity that Prof. Anido keeps it up to the present day. This work is vital for the realization of the Marathon and extends throughout the year.
On October 07, 2020, the Congregation of the Unicamp Computing Institute approved a vote of praise and tribute to Prof. Ricardo Anido, in recognition for his work of attracting young people to the Computing area, through his involvement with OBI and the SBC Programming Marathon since its beginnings. In addition to promoting a climate of harmony and healthy competition among students of all levels of education, these activities increased the external visibility of our Institute and contributed to the arrival of excellent students for Computing courses at Unicamp and throughout Brazil. An intense and tireless work by Prof. Anido, without neglecting his other academic activities, even as Director of the Institute of Computing.
In the face of so much dedication, we leave here our sincere thanks to him. Thank you!