How Anna Programmed her Way to Olympic Bronze

At just 14 years old, MakerLab Elite team member Anna Kotoula is a rising star in the world of competitive programming. Representing Greece at the European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI) 2025 in Bonn, she secured a bronze medal. We spoke with Anna about her quest, how she prepares for competitions, and her thoughts on informatics.

MakerLab Elite Team member Anna Kotoula

Hello Anna! Please tell us how you first discovered programming, and what inspired you to start?

I started coding Python during the Covid-19 quarantine, in 2020. I was around 10 years old at the time. My mom and my dad are both programmers, and they thought programming might be a good pastime during the pandemic. After I finished a small Python coding book, I switched to web development. Over the next two years, I learned CSS and HTML and made a simple website where I could upload my paintings. I focused a lot on making various animations using CSS, and I also learned a bit of JavaScript. 

You train at the Athens branch of MakerLab. What made you decide to join?

In 2023, I learned about the Greek national competition in Informatics completely randomly from a friend, and decided I would like to take part in it. I learned to code in C for exactly that reason, and after I passed the first phase of the competition, I turned to MakerLab for support during the next two phases. I was just a beginner in the field, so I decided I needed some guidance for competitive programming. Now, MakerLab has classes on Sundays, but in early 2024 I couldn’t take part in lessons with the rest of the group that was my level. So MakerLab agreed to give me private lessons, and that really helped my preparation for competitions.

“I was just a beginner in the field, so I decided I needed some guidance for competitive programming.”

Can you walk us through a typical week of study and practice?

I spend about 3-4 hours per day on my competitive programming training. During the lessons with MakerLab, we usually solve problems together. Throughout the week I then try to code those and similar problems alone. Sometimes, though, we learn new algorithms and data structures, and my goal for the week is to solve as many problems using these new techniques as possible. Sometimes they seem very complicated and hard, but when I have used them to solve four or five problems, I actually get to like them.

How do you balance training, school, and your other activities?

For school, I always participate actively in class and try to learn as much as possible during the lessons so I don’t have too much school work to do at home. I try to finish my homework and study for my exams, but my teachers are very supportive and understand that sometimes I can’t achieve perfect marks on a test due to upcoming competitions preparations. I also participate in math competitions, and balancing math and informatics can sometimes be hard. I also try to be active physically, for example by running or going to the gym. 

I try to finish my homework and study for my exams, but my teachers are very supportive and understand that sometimes I can’t achieve perfect marks on a test due to upcoming competitions preparations.

How did you find out you would be competing at EGOI 2025 in Bonn?

In Greece, national teams are selected using a combination of the score you get in the third phase of the PDP competition and during the camp that happens later. Now, because due to my mathematics preparation, I didn’t have much time to do any mock tests or solve any problems for the third phase of the competition. That resulted in my getting zero points in that exam. I was very disappointed with myself, and even thought about completely abandoning informatics.

When I learned I had passed the third phase and was given a chance in the next competitions during the camp, I was surprised. I studied hard during that one-week camp, resulting in me getting a good enough score on the final exams to qualify for the EGOI team. I was very happy I finally got a chance to be on a national team, even more so because up to two weeks before I found out, I was sure I wasn’t going to go to any Olympiads this year.

I was very happy I finally got a chance to be on a national team

What did your preparation look like leading up to the competition?

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever studied so hard in my life! I tried to fill in almost a year’s missing preparation in two months.

I spent more than seven hours a day on computer programming.

I did most of EGOI’ s past tasks, reading the solutions carefully and trying my best to solve every problem. I solved simple problems from USACO guide or Codeforces for warmup, and then I looked at the problems we did with MakerLab. I also did four or five mock tests on my own using problems from EJOI which have similar difficulty to EGOI problems, and got a terrifyingly low score the first and second time. When I got used to the four and five-hour long exams, though, my scores started increasing steadily. Later, in July, some past contestants and now organizers of the Greek national competition helped me and the rest of the EGOI team with our preparations.

What was the toughest problem you faced during EGOI 2025, and how did you solve it?

During the competition I focused a lot on subtasks. My goal wasn’t to get a full score on two or three challenges - it was to get a 10 % on each of the individual problems. On the first day of the competition, I solved the first problem within the first hour. After that, I solved two or three subtasks of the rest of the problems. I was proud of how quickly I implemented a simple Kruskal algorithm to solve 20% of the last problem, and that I thought of a 20% solution for the third problem. After that, I focused on the second problem and got a 50% solution.

Do you have a favorite moment or memory from the event?

Winning the medal, of course! I was very proud of myself because I had worked very hard and it had finally paid off. Other than that, though, it was fun and interesting to meet people from other countries with the same interests as you. I liked our day at Telekom, and the various workshops Jane Street put up for us in the hostel. I really enjoyed meeting new people and even making friends, and it was all the more interesting because they were from other countries. It can get a bit lonely being the only person I know who likes math or computer science, so I honestly liked meeting other people with the same interests as me.

I really enjoyed meeting new people and even making friends, and it was all the more interesting because they were from other countries.

Did you work with mentors to prepare? How did your peers support you?

My lessons with MakerLab were very important. Many times while I was trying to solve a problem, I remembered something said during the lessons. Also, I learned to write code better and clearer with MakerLab’ s help, something I could never have done on my own. In July when the weekly MakerLab lessons ended, some previous contestants helped with the team’s preparation. Because they had taken part in such competitions before, they knew not only what material was most useful, but also how to tackle problems in the competition, the importance of solving the easy subtasks fast and how to make best use of the last twenty minutes of the five-hour competition. We did mock exams almost every day with them.

Has your time at MakerLab influenced the way you approach solving problems?

I can find and solve problems on my own. However, when I am in a lesson with MakerLab, I learn about other approaches to the problem, and other solutions. It really opens my mind and I can see everything from another perspective. I learn new ways to use what I already know and even more ways to code it quickly and easily, so that a particular part doesn’t take a significant amount of time during the competition.

MakerLab helps me view everything from a different angle, and to formulate ideas I already have into concrete solutions.

What keeps you going when things get tough during preparations?

During preparation it is always good to take a break. I drink some water. I go outside. I solve a math problem. I read a book. Wasting too much time on a specific task is a mistake I have made lots of times, and I now understand better how easily I can get stuck on a problem, thinking I will definitely solve it if I just try a little bit harder. When I see myself not making any actual progress, I stop and move on before I get sucked into that unproductive cycle.

Are there any personal philosophies you follow when tackling challenges?

If I can’t immediately think of a solution, I try applying everything I have learned up till now to it. Checking algorithms, data structures or other techniques one by one to find something that could work. But if all that does not produce a result, then I move on to the next challenge rather quickly.

It is better to solve three or four problems in succession, than to focus on one problem for hours without making any progress. 

What does winning bronze at EGOI mean to you, and what are your next goals in competitions?

Well, winning a bronze medal was both expected and surprising at the same time. Expected in the sense that I got a similar score in mock tests, and that was also the score I got when solving previous EGOI tasks. Surprising because, especially after the first day, it felt too good to be true.

Others have been to the competition three or four times going home with not even an honorable mention, and I got bronze on my first try? I was sure I just got lucky and expected to get a horribly low score on the second day of the competition. 

Next year, I want to win gold in EGOI, or at least silver, because if I got bronze with only two month’s serious preparation before, what will happen if I study for three hours a day this year? I also want to get bronze or silver in the EJOI Olympiad next year. Simultaneously, I also look forward to participation in math competitions. 

Have you thought about what you’d like to focus on in the future?

I haven’t really thought about it. I am just 14 years old, so the future still looks unclear to me. I guess we’ll see how the next four years go. I have a feeling that what I will be doing in the future rests heavily on what I am going to do now, and what awards I will get in which competitions. Long-term, I hope these successes in competitions can help me enter a good university of my choice, and the rest, of course, depends on that. I don’t know what my life will look like in four years after I finish school, but I guess I’ll find out.

What advice would you give to other students who want to get into programming or participate in competitions?

Try it out! There is plenty of online material where they can start out learning the basics. I would tell them not to give up on their first try, to give programming a real chance.

New things can be hard to learn and might seem confusing at the start, but once you get to know them you might actually like them. 

It worked like that for me. It was only after I had forced myself through the first two chapters of the Python book that I actually started liking the challenges.

Is there someone, like a mentor, teacher or parent, who played a particularly important role for you?

Yes. I think both my parents and my sister were very supportive and helpful these past two years.