Hi everyone!

PoPularPlusPlus and I (evenvalue) are starting The Indian OI Community, a completely free mentorship community for Indian school students preparing for INOI, IOITC, and IOI.

Many students learn the standard competitive programming basics and reach a decent level on Codeforces, but aren't sure how to transition to Olympiad-style problem solving. We want to help make that transition easier.

Who is this for?

We're looking for students who:

• Are studying in Class 12 or below in India.
• Have reached a maximum Codeforces rating of at least 1400.
• Are seriously interested in preparing for INOI / IOITC / IOI.
• Can consistently commit time to harder problems, mock contests, and discussions.

The rating criterion is flexible. We'll consider exceptions based on class, dedication, previous Olympiad experience, and current preparation. If you're below 1400, explain why you'd be a good fit in your application.

What are we planning?

• Curated Olympiad-oriented problem sets, including relevant past contest problems.
• Regular mock contests, with detailed editorials and solution discussions.
• Hints and guidance for difficult problems.
• Advice on what to practise and how to practise effectively.
• Direct interaction with mentors and other motivated school students.

Mentors

• Dominater069
• SmolBrain
• hariaakash646
• aryan12
• evenvalue
• ha___il
• trash-can
• PoPularPlusPlus
• sav
• inventiontime
• unforgettablepl
• aaron.dominic.k
• crap_the_coder
• onebit1024

How do you apply?

The community will be hosted on Discord.

Apply to join here.

The application asks for your name, class, whether you study in India, CF handle and maximum rating, Olympiad experience and goals, and weekly time commitment.

Applications are reviewed manually by us. Please explain any request for an exception to the rating criterion.

Once approved, you'll complete the onboarding and CF account verification before receiving access to the practice channels.

Community rules

• Be respectful. No harassment, spam, or unsolicited self-promotion.
• Use your own CF account, and keep your server nickname the same as your CF handle.
• Respect contest integrity. No sharing hints, code, or solutions during live contests.
• Respect privacy. Don't share others' personal information or application answers. Ask before sending unsolicited DMs.
• Participate consistently in practice, mocks, and discussions.

You'll agree to the rules when applying. Don't include passwords or other sensitive information in your application.

There is no fee. If this sounds useful, submit an application, and feel free to share this blog with school students who would be a good fit.

Thanks!
— evenvalue and PoPularPlusPlus

Hello Codeforces,

This blog is regarding the on-site centre allocation for the Amritapuri regionals of ICPC India.

In previous years, top-performing teams in the prelims were typically assigned the Bangalore site for the onsite Amritapuri regionals. This year, however, all top teams have been assigned to Kollam without being given a choice. This change poses significant logistical challenges for many participants.

For most teams, travelling to Bangalore is considerably easier and more cost-effective, and securing Bangalore as the onsite location has always been a strong incentive to perform well in the prelims.

Assigning all top teams to Kollam without an option feels unfair. Therefore, we (p1k4 and I) would like to request that top teams be given the choice to opt for the Bangalore site.

The purpose of this blog is to bring this issue to the attention of the organizers. If you agree, please support this request by emailing the organizers and by commenting “+1” along with your team name.

Hello, Codeforces Community!

We are excited to introduce the GoForGold Long Challenges.

The long challenge format is where contestants are given a long period of time, usually a week or several days, to work on a set of problems. Some notable examples include CodeChef Long Challenges (discontinued) and HackerEarth Circuits (discontinued).

We will host GoForGold Long Challenges every month .

The duration will be ~10 days (from Friday afternoon to next Sunday midnight).

Why Long Challenges?

Short contests are fun, and almost all the recognized competitions are in this format only. The adrenaline rush they provide is what makes CP a sport, but there are some really good benefits of Long challenges :

• Longer duration allows us to give contests in a much more relaxed environment.
• We can attempt much harder problems as compared as we have more time to crack it.
• There is a bigger room for learning a new algorithm, data structure, or some non-trivial trick or technique in a long contest.
• As many participants are trying the same problems for 7-10 days, thus you have a larger community to discuss the problem.
• The community is much more active because of the longer duration of the contest.
• Many people miss the contests because of odd timing, clashes with their exams, etc in short contests but here everyone can participate as per their own convenience.
• In a typical short contest, participants solve the problems which are easy for them in the first half and then solve the problems which really matter to them in the second half. In a long challenge you solve those easier problems on the first day and then spend the rest of the days on the problems which will challenge you.

This is a community driven initiative and all the problems are prepared/picked by the community. This is the first iteration and the problems will be a mix of old and new problems of varying difficulty level (800-2700). The nature of the problem will be educational and not ad-hoc.

We will also release topics and hints on day-7 so that participants will have 3 more days in which they can learn the concept and try the problem again. We will host the post contest discussion of the contest along with some learning sessions on the topics involved.

Update

Problems discussion with jenil0108 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygil6-ttQ_4

• You can join our discord server for any questions or volunteering for future contests: Discord Invite

• From the next iteration as we will get more volunteers and sponsors, we will try to have all new problems. If you want to contribute : Please fill this form.

Contest Detail :

Please join the codeforces group : https://codeforces.me/group/OseQ3LxgeG and register for the contest.

• Start time : 17th Jan 2025, 03:00 PM (IST)
• End time : 27th Jan 2025, 12:00 AM (IST)

Contributors

• All problems are prepared by aryanc403, weirdflexbutok, Enigma27 and me (evenvalue)

• I would also like to thank the testers of the round ash1794, BiggestOtaku, Atekichan, naivedyam_mishra and Fremder.

UPDATE : The contest has started

UPDATE 2 : Hints/topics/resources are published

Hello codeforces!

Magic is around the corner, and I wonder if we'll be able to become Tourist's with magic. What do you think? ;)

Will this year finally be a year where LGM isn't the most popular magical role?

Hello Codeforces!

I wanted to discuss something extremely important. About the name for Ordered Sets.

The normal std::set is also ordered, then why is it not called ordered set? Ordered Sets aren't useful because they are just ordered, its because they also allow us to index the set.

Hence I believe Indexed Sets would be a better name for it. If you have any other suggestions for the name lmk!