Short interviews before CEOI 2020 – Márton Erdős, member of the Scientific Committee

How did you get in touch with IT?

My mum is a high-school programming and Maths teacher (here, in Batthyány); she taught me programming at a fairly young age. I started with visual programming in LOGO and moved on to algorithms, “real” programming languages, and competitive programming. In the end, it was an important part of my high-school years: I took part in 2 CEOIs and 3 IOIs.

Is it still a part of your life? If yes, how?

I’ve just graduated from the Computer Science course at the University of Cambridge, and I’m starting a PhD this year. Although competitive programming is relatively far from my current focus, which is in Computer Architecture, participating in Olympiads in Informatics was certainly a great experience, and very useful too.

What is your role at the competition?

 I work in the Scientific Committee, so I’m partly responsible for the competition tasks. I hope you’ll like them 🙂

What kind of experience did you have when you were in the competition?

 The CEOIs I was at were great fun. For me, the best part was to have a concrete goal to work towards. Getting some feedback and rewards (and something to put on my university application 🙂 ) also proved very useful. Another great thing was the chance to get to know some of my fellow competitors. I really hope you’ll get to socialise a little too, despite the current circumstances; I know the organisers have worked very hard to make this possible.

Do you have any advice for the contestants?

Have fun, you’ve earnt it (I’m sure you’ve all worked hard to get here). And remember: any result from a CEOI is already great. Good luck!