New York: Agastya Goel, an Indian-origin teenager based in California, has won a gold medal at the prestigious 36th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), held in Egypt. This victory marks Agastya's second gold at the world's toughest programming contest for high schoolers, where he ranked fourth overall with an impressive score of 438.97 out of 600.
Agastya, the son of Ashish Goel, a Stanford professor and former IIT-JEE topper, has followed in his father's footsteps of academic excellence, impressing the tech community globally.
Indian-origin tech influencer Debarghya (Deedy)Das shared the news about Agastya's impressive feat on X.
"Agastya Goel just got his 2nd IOI Gold medal for the US, the world's hardest programming contest for high schoolers. He was #4 overall. His father Ashish Goel was #1 of ~1M in the IIT exam 1990 in India and a PhD and CS algo professor at Stanford!" he wrote.
"Like father, like son," Das added.
Agastya Goel's achievement has garnered major attention on social media, where many have compared his success to that of his father, Ashish Goel.
Ashish topped the IIT-JEE exam in 1990 and went on to earn a PhD in computer science from Stanford. He has built an impressive career, contributing to companies like Twitter and Stripe and becoming a renowned professor in algorithmic research.
The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is regarded as one of the five toughest International Science Olympiads.
This year's gold medalist, Kangyang Zhou from China, achieved a perfect score of 600 out of 600, securing first place. 34 students, including another Indian, Kshitij Sodani, ranked 21, took home gold medals.
