Pattaya's Royal Cliff Beach Resort Hotel will become the scene of intensive international competition tomorrow for the start of the 23rd International Olympiad in Informatics, IOI 2011.

Thailand is hosting the eight-day Olympiad, led by the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST).

The event will mark two decades of participation by Thai students in the International Olympiad in Informatics. It is officially seen as an effort to promote studies of computer science and informatics - the science of processing data for storage and retrieval -among young people in order to pave the way for higher education and to prepare them to make the most of employment opportunities.

IPST's director Pornpan Vitayangkorn said that more than 10 subcommittees had been hard at work for several months to prepare for the competition. Taking part will be four competitors from each of 79 countries - a total of 316 students.

Four talented students have already been chosen to represent Thailand. They are Pasin Manoorungsri, Lopnachai Jirachupan, Witchakorn Kamolpornvijit and Sorawit Suriyakarn.

IPST hopes that the international competition will inspire students all over Thailand who are not yet interested in the subject to turn their thoughts to computer science and programming. They will be able to follow progressive real-time scores at the official website - www.ioi2011.or.th - or visit science and computer exhibitions at the competition venue.

Pornpan said the government hoped that Thailand would gain many benefits from hosting IOI 2011, especially in terms of education development. Its aim was to capture students' attention with the competition and encourage them to develop an interest in science and computer studies. Among other things, it hopes to increase the number of students applying to be Thailand's representatives at future informatics Olympiads. Only 2,000 students sought to represent the country in the current competition - a small number when similar academic competitions in other disciplines attract more than 10,000 applicants.

Participation in the IOI also gives Thailand a process for training top talented students. Those who are recruited each year receive in-depth training in computer science, even though they may not achieve selection as one of the four students who become the country's representatives in the international competition.

"They benefit from joining the whole process," Pornpan said. "The training is not of the kind usually taught at school level. It is university-level knowledge. Students who join the training are given more knowledge than their peers. We would like to see many more students realise this, so that many more will come to join us."

A member of the IOI 2011 organising committee, Yuen Poovarawan, said academic competitions were unlike sports competitions, which depended upon the physical and natural atmosphere, and not only on training. Academic competitions require the use of the brain and thinking processes to solve problems in a limited time. This kind of competition depends mainly on training.

Competitors at the IOI must use their brains to solve very complicated but logical problems by using computers as a tool. To tackle these problems, students have to be heavily trained by a team of teachers who are experts in informatics.

"Taking part in IOI every year involves just a small group of students, but we hope this small group of talented young people will encourage many more students to become interested in this kind of learning and turn to practice it as well," Yuen said.

Chairperson of the Host Scientific Committee, Jittat Fakcharoenphol said the problems set for competitors at IOI 2011 would be divided into different levels of difficulty - from easy through intermediate to hard - in order to ensure that all of more than 300 participants would enjoy the competition and feel challenged by it.

"We want students to enjoy learning computer science. They should enjoy this, even though they're in a competition. The problems will be divided into different levels of difficulty so that students who have different skills and abilities in programming can enjoy dealing with them. This will motivate them to enjoy learning computer science," Jittat said.

For a country like Thailand, which has been taking part in IOI competitions for nearly 20 years, the mission is to maintain the capability level of its participants above the mean line. Taking part in the IOI is also a strategy to improve the standard of learning for young students and increase awareness of informatics and computers in providing logical and efficient solutions to problems.

IOI is one of the most widely recognised computer-science competitions in the world. Winners commonly go on to become the best young computer scientists, since the most prestigious industries and universities in the world are eager to open their doors to IOI medalists.

Over its 20 years of participation, competitors from Thailand have won 11 goal medals, 26 silver and 32 bronze.

Organisation of IOI 2011 is a collaborative effort involving the Promotion of Academic Olympiad and Development of Science Education Foundation, Kasetsart, Chulalongkorn, Burapha and Assumption universities, the National Science and Technology Development Agency and Pattaya City.