TL;DR The Greek National Informatics team is holding a crowdfunding campaign to become able to participate on-site in IOI 2022 in Indonesia
Hello dear Codeforces community,
My name is Oleh Naver and I am from Ukraine. Last month my friend posted a blog on Codeforces about a fundraising campaign for hosting the Ukrainian selections for IOI. First of all, thank you all so much for donating, we are so grateful that we were finally able to host them. Now my dear friends from Greece who have qualified for IOI and helped in our crowdfunding are facing an economical issue. Apparently because the spread of the coronavirus has affected the financial state of businesses and national economies, they can't find sponsors to cover the expenses for them to travel on-site to Indonesia.
Let me highlight the importance of participating in on-site Olympiads instead of online. First of all, I, myself have participated online in IOI and many other Olympiads for the past two years like them. It has been for sure a much worse experience than any other on-site contest I have been to, especially last year when I won a gold medal in IOI. The purpose of IOI is of course not only the competition itself but mostly the whole experience, including meeting other people with the same interests, getting to know other cultures, going on excursions and much more. All of these,combined with the late karaoke & game nights and the bonding between the participants,make IOI special and fun.
They cannot be compared at all to online competitions where you barely even get to speak to other contestants even from your own country. As for most of them it is their last year participating in IOI and it would be really sad to stay once again online, having never participated in any international competitions on-site, while at the same time attending an on-site IOI is a dream for many high-school competitive programmers out there.
Having said all the above, I believe you — and especially those out there that have been IOI contestants themselves in the past - understand the huge difference between those two types of participation. Therefore, our friends from Greece have started the fundraising campaign below where you can donate any amount of money. We will be very grateful if you do so. However, if you can't donate any money at all then you can at least help by sharing this post. Everything depends on you.
Thank you all so much in advance both from the Greek IOI team and me.
