London: A 17-year-old schoolgirl from London has won a silver medal for Team India in the European Girls' Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI) in the Netherlands, where the Indian squad registered its best-ever performance with 2 bronze medals and one honourable mention.
Aanya Goyal, a student at Alleyn's School in Dulwich, was up against the top coders from across 50 countries at the prestigious international competition for young women interested in computer science which concluded in Veldhoven over the weekend.
The mathematics enthusiast used her problem-solving mindset to come up with innovative solutions to crack a series of challenges set for the teams. "I feel very proud to have won a silver medal for India at the Girls' Olympiad in Informatics at a time when competitive programming is emerging as one of the most popular sports all over the world, but especially in India," said Goyal.
"The contest consisted of two sessions of five hours each and in each session, we were given four problems to solve - each containing several sub-tasks. The problems are complex algorithmic design and coding implementation challenges. Five hours go by very quickly and is not quite enough time," she shared.
As per the EGOI rules, the implemented code has to get through a set of sub-tasks within two to four seconds. This means the participants must be really good at maths, and creative in problem design and solutions to deliver super-efficient coding while operating at an incredibly fast pace.
"Once I made the team, I was fortunate to be part of the best team in the world. My teammates - two Nehas and Mansi, and our team leader Sonia ma'am - are the most amazing people," said Goyal, who dedicated her medal to Team India's coaching and support staff.
The team was mentored by Paras Kasmalkar, an International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) silver medallist. "When you have such support, then there is no choice but to prepare well and to fight for the full 10 hours, from the first minute to the last," added Goyal.
A problem solver at heart who loves crosswords, Kakuro puzzles and chess, the schoolgirl first tasted Olympiad success with mathematics but has also participated in the Linguistics Olympiad.
She trained for many years to be able to solve the hardest combinatorics and number theory problems and to decipher all kinds of languages applying the same problem-solving mindset. With EGOI, she felt ready for a new challenge that went beyond problem-solving to problem design and implementation.
"I want to study mathematics and computer science at university. While maths remains the primary interest, computing and other applications of maths offer an opportunity to use my problem-solving skills to make the world a better place," she said of her future plans.
"That is serious business for me and not a cliche. I am keen to have a career where I can utilise my skills to make a real impact. I also feel a certain weight of responsibility as a girl doing well in maths and computing Olympiads because sadly when it comes to elite competitions in these subjects, men still comprise 95 per cent of the field; that needs to change," she added.
The maths and computer whiz strongly believes that more girls should be involved in designing the technologies of the future and hopes to be role models to help override unconscious societal bias.
As a "proud Indian" living in the UK, she turns to tunes like 'Chak De India' and 'Ziddi Dil' from sporty Bollywood biopics 'Chak De! India' and 'Mary Kom' have motivated her through her competitive journey.
With her silver medal in the bag, she is now keen to see Team India double their medals haul at the ongoing Paris Olympics 2024. "People can dismiss me as being over-optimistic but if you cannot dream big, then you cannot win big," she declared.