Polish schoolchildren and college students regularly take part in all manner of international competitions. Over the years, many young Poles have been successful in various fields including both arts and sciences.

Young computer scientists have an especially large number of achievements under their belt. They have been successful in some of the world's most prestigious contests in this field, including the annual Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC) organized by the IEEE Computer Society. In the event's six-year history to date, students from the Poznań University of Technology have won twice, in 2001 and 2004. Poles have also won in the finals of Imagine Cup, a global technology contest organized by Microsoft amid much media attention. In last year's contest, around 65,000 students from across the world took part, and 181 participants from 42 countries qualified for the world finals. They competed in six categories: Software Development, Algorithm, Short Film, Information Technologies, Hoshimi Project/

Programming Battle and Interface Project. Polish students scored a great success by grabbing top places in two categories. Piotr Mikulski and Przemysław Dębiak of the University of Warsaw and Tomasz Błajek of the Poznań University of Technology outclassed their rivals in the Algorithm category winning the top three places. And Julia Górniewicz of the University of Warmia and Mazuria and Jacek Barcikowski of the Poznań University of Technology were second in the Short Film category. Another highly prestigious competition is the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, in which Polish students have been winning top places for several years now. This year in Tokyo, a team from the University of Warsaw, made up of Marek Cygan, Marcin Pilipczuk and Filip Wolski, won the title of world champions. A record number of 6,099 teams from 1,756 universities participated. The Warsaw team was the only one to solve eight of 10 problems during the world finals. Notably, the University of Warsaw has for a long time ranked first in TopCoder, the world's most prestigious league table that ranks universities educating computer scientists. The University of Wrocław is also among the top 10. At this writing, in national terms, Poland is second after Russia, although it was once first. In the individual TopCoder ranking, Tomasz Czajka also ranks second at the moment. In 2003, Czajka, in a team together with Andrzej G±sienica-Samek and Krzysztof Onak, won the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

What is TopCoder and why is this competition so important? It is a global competition that is organized regularly by the world's leading computer companies. Once a week, at 2 a.m. Polish time, the participants have to sit at their computers and solve problems of the utmost difficulty. The open online competition lasts one year and ends with a tournament on location with the best 24 contestants. Czajka has already won TopCoder three times.

Poland also has many young talented economists. One example are students from the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) who were named the best investors in this year's contest staged by the Merrill Lynch investment fund. The team, composed of Anna Gawelowicz, Piotr Bujko, Adam Markiel and Miłosz Tutak, beat 200 other teams from across Europe, including representatives of reputable schools such as the London School of Economics, the universities in Bristol and Frankfurt, and the European Business School in Germany.

Piotr Czerski, a 2007 graduate of the Warsaw University of Technology, was recently honored in the BE Awards of Excellence competition for the world's best design for a traffic interchange. Young Poles have also achieved notable success in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). Organized by the European Commission since 1989, the contest attracts around 30,000 young scientists every year. Although Polish scientists have only taken part in the contest since 1995, they already have almost as many prizes to their name as their German counterparts-in various fields of research including paleontology, astronomy, mathematics, economics, physics and chemistry.

Established in 1981, the Polish Children's Fund has played an important role in promoting talented students in areas ranging from music to computer skills. Many Polish winners of various national and international competitions have developed their skills thanks to support from the fund.

Poland has no lack of young talent, and, contrary to popular belief, many of these people have no plans to leave the country and work abroad. The best are likely to be approached by the largest companies, offering conditions comparable to those in the most developed countries around the world. While it is impossible to persuade all talented Poles to stay home, in the long run emigration may turn out to be beneficial for the country. This is exemplified by Ireland where more than 7 percent of the population left the country at a time of recession. Years later many of them returned with capital and better education, spurring the local economy into a period of breakneck growth.
Krzysztof Jendrzejczak


Cream of the Crop
Filip Wolski, a first-year student of the Department of Mathematics and Information Technology at the University of Warsaw (UW), has won first prizes and other distinctions at many national and international IT competitions. He is the first Pole in the history of the "International Olympiad in Informatics" (IOI), who, apart from a gold medal, has won the title of the world's best IT specialist (in 2006).
He was also part of the team that won the title of 2007 world university champions in team programming. Wolski says:

My interest in computer science started quite some time ago, when I was in grade one at Junior High School No. 24 in Gdynia, thanks to my great information technology teacher, Mr. Ryszard Szubartowski. In my belief, the best way to learn information technology and mathematics, or any other science, is to have personal interest in it, and do it by oneself, being only guided by someone.
And that's how I managed to join the Polish team for the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). I was part of the team for four years, and finally won in 2006, in Mexico.

Preparations for team championships are a bit different, as a great amount of time and effort is given to teamwork training, but the basics are the same-passion is a necessity. My plans for future? There's a lot of things, some even mutually exclusive. Finish university. Work for some time overseas; internships, then come back to Poland. Finish my PADI Divemaster certificate, work once in a while as a diver. And much more.