Winners of Robotex and MRC Cyprus 2024 awarded at special ceremony

The winners of the 7th Robotex Cyprus and the 1st Minoan RobotSports Competition MRC Cyprus that took place last June under the auspices of President Nikos Christodoulides were honoured at a special ceremony.

The Robotex MRC Cyprus 2024 Awards Ceremony was organised by the Cyprus Computer Society (CCS) on October 9, 2024, and was hosted at Bank of Cyprus' Headquarters.

The event was welcomed by the Chief Scientist for Research, Innovation, and Technology, Demetris Skourides, whose speech was delivered by Costas Christofides, a member of the Board of the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF). As a diamond sponsor, the RIF has consistently supported the youth contributing to the technological innovation and progress of Cyprus.

More than 400 attendees had the chance to take photos at the Interactive Photobooth and participate in a Rubik’s Cube solving competition. The winner of the competition was announced by Elli Ioannidou, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Bank of Cyprus, while George Koussis, Executive Director of Technology & Operations, awarded prizes.

The event with the Presentation of the European project CybARbverse, one of CCS's initiatives to promote and advance the ICT sector in Cyprus. As highlighted by the CCS Project Officer, Toumazis Toumazi, the CybARverse Academies offer free training on cybersecurity topics, utilising VR/AR technologies. Attendees had the opportunity to try on virtual and augmented reality glasses with content from the CybARbverse project.

Following that, volunteers were awarded in memory of Andreas Antoniou by CCS Chairman, Costas Agrotis. In particular, a young scientist Pantelis Katsis, a computer science student Niki Chatzigeorgiou and the teachers of Secondary Education George Vassiliou and Christos Kyprianou were awarded.

The stars of the event, of course, were the 190 roboticists - students and adults - who excelled with their teams in the final round of more than 25 different competition challenges.

The awards, designed and produced by Robo.com.cy, were presented by representatives of the institutions supporting the event. These included co-organisers University of Cyprus, Youth Board, and IET Cyprus; the Ministry of Education, Sports, and Youth; the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Digital Policy; and the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (ETEK). Supporting companies included XM (Tech Partner) and the Bank of Cyprus (Youth Supporter), with gold sponsor Neapolis University, silver sponsors Hellas Sat and Huawei, and bronze sponsors Kardex, ICDL, Novatex, Zebra Consultants, NETu and Netinfo. In addition, lyceum students received scholarships from 6 private universities: Neapolis, EUC, UNIC, UoL, Frederick, and UCLan.

Many of the awarded roboticists will travel to Estonia this December to represent Cyprus at Robotex International, a competition where Cyprus wins numerous awards every year. Additionally, the winners of the MRC challenges will have the opportunity to participate, for the first time, in the international MRC Global Olympiad, which will be held in Crete in April.

Until the next Robotex MRC Cyprus event, set for the last weekend of June 2025, the Cyprus Computer Society will be organising its current school year competitions, including:

• Bebras: An algorithmic thinking competition for elementary and middle schools,
• Informatics Olympiad: For secondary education, and
• First Lego League: Another robotics competition scheduled for March 2025.

For more information on all CCS activities, visit www.ccs.org.cy or contact 22460680.