site.btaBulgaria to Host First AI International Student Olympiad in August

This year, Bulgaria will organize the first international student Olympiad in AI, Alexander Velinov, secretary of the Balkan Mathematical Olympiad organizing committee, told journalists. He specified that the competition will take place from August 9 to 15 in Burgas and there are already 27 teams from 20 countries registered.

The goal of the Olympiad will be for children to understand how artificial intelligence works, Velinov explained. They will solve problems, make programmes and systems, and they will have to train the models in several areas - machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision. For the last one, Velinov explained that students will have to deal with the analysis of photographic material, after which images will be generated with artificial intelligence, taking care to be ethical and follow certain rules.

The organizers have taken into account that not everywhere children study artificial intelligence and they will provide a free online course in advance, explained the expert. Some of the tasks will be given earlier so that the participants can prepare. The jury that will evaluate the competitors will be made up of professors and specialists from leading universities, including Oxford and Abu Dhabi, added Velinov. 

The goal of the organizers of the Olympiad is to explain what artificial intelligence does and that people should not be afraid of it, but use it in their daily lives, Velinov also said. He clarified that the ethical issues surrounding Al will not be touched upon this year, since the Olympiad is being held for the first time, but in in the future the students will be involved with them as well.