你好Codeforces!

The International Invitational Math Optimization Challenge (IIMOC) team is pleased to announce the start of the 2025 season of IIMOC.

About IIMOC

The IIMOC is a global high-school contest focused on heuristic problem solving. It is problem-set by ZhouShang2003 (Real Contest Problem), Joyemang (Sample Problem) with help from Berkeley Sky Labs and advised by Rob Kolstad (former head coach of the USA Computing Olympiad). Problems were prepared by Edwin Chen. It is tested by just_average_ok, ZhouShang2003, Marco_L_T, Torin Solmer, Reece Hanchett, Chris Bartlo, and many others from the Lincoln Computer Science Association.

Teams from around the world are invited to tackle a single large-scale optimization problem that is intentionally approachable but unsolvable in exact form. Over the course of one month, each team develops algorithms and heuristics to minimize loss and maximize performance.

Contest Highlights

Open internationally: Any high-school/observer team can participate.

One deep problem: No short puzzles; you spend the month refining your solver.

Real-world: Optimization, data analysis, and creative algorithms.

Visualizable: The problem will contain a visualizer for seamless debugging.

Professional Development: High-ranking teams may be recommended to sponsors.

Transferrable Skills: The problem will contain algorithmic aspects, so those who are confident on Codeforces will also find success in IIMOC.

Prizes

The winning team will receive a trophy and some t-shirts as a Souvenir. There is no limit on team sizes but only up to 30 people will receive a t-shirt.

Timeline

There is no deadline for registration; In other words, registration will continue to be allowed until the submission deadline. The competition will proceed as follows:

Nov 22, 2025 Competition begins, problem released

Dec 21, 2025 Submission deadline

Dec 22, 2025 Results released

Divisions

There is a high-school contest, in which anyone below the age of 18 can participate. Contestants above the age of 18 can put "observer" under "What country is your club/team located in?". This division will also recieve T-shirts, but note that the maximum team size is 10.

How to Join

Registration and rules are available on our website: iimoc.org

Form your team, read the challenge, and start building your heuristic!

Sample Problem

IIMOC will feature a problem with similar style to AtCoder Heuristic Contests, except with more math involved and a more approachable problem. We provide a sample problem for teams to get used to the logistics before the contest start on November 22. You can access this problem here.

Our Sponsors

We are sponsored by AP Memory and Cascade-X. AP Memory is a company based in Taiwan working on VHM technologies with wide applicability in AI and High Performance Computing; Cascade-X is in stealth mode.