Episode 21: Diversity and IOI – International Olympiad in Informatics

Interview with: Two Guests: One of the rare Women Gold Medalists at IOI, and 
a Professor's analysis of IOI's US diversity data.

Episode Guide

In this Episode: The international science olympiads in Computer Science are massive events, yet they see very few women participants, and even fewer women medalists. This episode features two guests who talk about the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI): first, one of the rare women gold medalists at the worldwide (and one of the only Chinese women in 2 decades before): Danqi Chen (CS Prof at Princeton). Then we hear Jelani Nelson (CS Prof at UC Berkeley) talk about his analysis of the diversity data of IOI. This is a remix episode, featuring snippets of conversations from Season 1 of the podcast.

• mm.ss: Segment Info (Index)
• 0.46: Introduction to Episode
• 1.10: Danqi Chen, Computer Science Professor at Princeton
• 11.19: Jelani Nelson, Computer Science Professor at UC Berkeley

About the Narrators in this Episode

• Jelani Nelson
• Danqi Chen

Useful Links

• IOI Demographics Studies Referenced in Episode: Stefano Maggiolo, “An Update on the Female Presence at the IOI“, Olympiads in Informatics, 2015, Vol. 9, 127–137 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/ioi.2015.10 127 . [PDF]
• Jelani Nelson, “2011-2020 USACO Camp Unique Participants by State“, 2020. [Link].
• International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) [Wikipedia Page]
• International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI)

Season 2 Coming in February 2022! 
Stay tuned!

Previously on this Podcast

In case you missed it! Previously on the Immigrant Computer Scientists Podcast

• Several anonymous narrators, from across many continents. (Episode 15).
• Our interview with Danqi Chen, Gold Medal winner at IOI (Informatics Olympiad) in 2008 (only woman Gold medal winner), and student in famous Yao Class at Tsinghua University. (Episode 14).
• Our interview with Jelani Nelson, “immigrant” from US Virgin Islands and creator of AddisCoder program in Ethiopia (Episode 13), especially his last segment on IOI data inequity analysis.
• Our third segment (Episodes 9, 10, 11, 12) on Middle East, featuring entrepreneurs and a famous academic family from Iran, Lebanon, and Egypt , starting with the Middle East Entrepreneurs lead episode.
• Our second segment (Episodes 5, 6, 7, 8) featuring Computer Scientists from Brazil, all of whom spent careers in both academia and industry, going To and Fro between Brazil and US, and to and fro between academia and industry.
• Our first segment (Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4) featuring Computer Scientists from Yugoslavia, A Country That No Longer Exists?
• Check them out!

• Credits
  • Music Credits for Podcast
  • The caption picture at top of page is of a sunset outside the city of Dallas in the US. Pic taken by Indy Gupta.

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