More than 130 pupils aged from 13 to 18 years old from the Republic of Korea, People's Republic of China, Russian Federation, Indonesia, Singapore, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, Japan and Peru met in the South Korean town Ansan for participation in the 18th International Standards Olympiad. The competitions have been held in face-to-face format since 2019.
The ISO Secretary-General Sergio Mujica, the IEC Secretary-General Philippe Metzger and the ISO President-elect (Republic of Korea) Sung Hwan Cho performed with welcome speeches during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympiad.
In their speeches they pointed out the importance of the International Standards Olympiad and highlighted that nowadays the participants of the Olympiad formed the standards of the future.
The initiative of organization of an annual International Standards Olympiad among pupils aged from 13 to 18 years old was announced in 2006 by the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS) and the Korean Standards Association (KSA) to promote understanding of important role of standards for next generations.
The International Standards Olympiad has been included in the program of official events of international organizations on standardization – ISO and IEC since 2015.
This year the Russian Federation was presented by the team of 9 pupils from Nizhny Novgorod, Tomsk, Kazan, Ufa, Sevastopol, Lugansk, Cheboksary and Novosibirsk. They were selected according to the results of the All-Russian Standards Olympiad that was held in May 2023. The pupils were divided into three groups - 2 teams of the High school and one team of the Middle school.
The Russian team was preparing for the participation in the Olympiad during the summer together with their tutors - Deputy Director General of the Russian Standardization Institute Alexey Ivanov, Director of the Federal Budgetary Institution " State Regional Center for Standardization, Metrology and Testing in the Chuvash Republic" Rostislav Sirotkin, Department Chairman of the Institute of Fundamental Training and Technological Innovations of the Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation (SUAI) Kirill Epifantsev.
The main task of the final stage of the competition was development and presentation of the draft international standard. Pupils from the High school had to prepare draft international standard on test methods for facial recognition systems while pupils from the Middle school had to develop draft international standard on electric automobile.
Draft international standard and presentation materials had to be prepared in English language using the provided existing international standards. The works were evaluated according to feasibility, adequacy and specificity of international standards.
Following the results of the competition, the teams of the Russian Federation received honorary prizes of the audience choice award. The main prize this year was taken by the national team of the Republic of Korea.