Nguyen Xuan Chi Thanh, bronze medalist at the Asia–Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO), surpassed nearly 5,000 university students and IT engineers to become the champion of the Code Tour 2025 programming contest.
Nguyen Xuan Chi Thanh, 17, is currently a 12th-grade student majoring in Informatics at the High School for the Gifted in VNU University of Sciences.
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Chi Thanh said that this achievement is especially meaningful for his final year of high school. He also valued the opportunity to interact with and learn from older peers, gaining skills in time management, staying calm, and building self-confidence.
In March, Chi Thanh was a member of the Vietnamese team at the Asia–Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO), where he won a bronze medal.
Code Tour 2025, jointly organized by Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, and VNG, attracted 5,100 contestants. Of these, 85% were university students, 12% were recent graduates in programming within the past two years, and fewer than 200 were high school students.
Participants competed online over five weeks, starting in early October, with three qualifying rounds to select 60 finalists. The competition focused on algorithms and problem-solving skills.
According to Dr. Nguyen Hai Dang from the Software Technology Laboratory, University of Science, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, and Head of the Exam Committee, the problems were designed based on three criteria: ability to classify contestants, modernity linked to practical applications, and inspiring young participants’ passion. In each round, coding was not only a technical exercise but also a journey to challenge contestants’ resilience, thinking skills, and creativity.
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Recently, high school students have achieved outstanding results in extended programming competitions. In last weekend’s national ICPC contest for university students, which featured 491 teams, these students claimed three of the top five positions.
Among them, two teams were from the High School for the Gifted in Natural Sciences, and one team was from the Pedagogy Specialty. Additionally, the team from Thang Long High School in Lam Dong Province ranked sixth. All four teams successfully solved all the problems, with their final rankings determined only by penalty points.
