NUS Computing has received a generous multi-year donation from leading homegrown consumer Internet company, Sea, to establish the Sea Olympiad Scholarship.

This Scholarship is open to all students who have excelled in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) and who intend to subsequently pursue their full-time undergraduate studies at NUS Computing.

The IOI, one of five international science Olympiads, is the most prestigious computer science competition for secondary school and high school students around the world. This is the first year that NUS Computing, as a school, is offering scholarships directly to IOI medallists. Previously, support for such talent was provided through more generic NUS scholarships.

Professor Mohan Kankanhalli, Dean, NUS Computing and Mr Ye Qunfeng, Vice-President of Labs, Sea, signed the agreement today to establish the Scholarship and a ceremonial cheque was presented by Sea to the School. A donation of close to S$500,000 was made to NUS Computing to kickstart the initial funding for the Scholarship.

The inaugural recipients of the Scholarship are Mr Nyamdavaa Amar and Mr Bui Hong Duc, both first-year students in Computer Science. Nyamdavaa, who is from Mongolia, was a gold medallist at the IOI 2020 and International Mathematical Olympiad 2021, while Hong Duc, from Vietnam, was a gold medallist at both the IOI 2020 and 2019, as well as the Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad 2020.

“We are grateful to Sea for their strong support and trust. This scholarship will enable NUS Computing to attract some of the best students with demonstrated aptitude and a passion for computing. This is a huge encouragement to the School in its pursuit of global excellence,” said Prof Kankanhalli.

“Sea’s success would not have been possible without the strong pipeline of tech talent that has been nurtured by local institutes of higher learning such as NUS. We hope that through this scholarship, we can attract more top computing talent to enrol in NUS and eventually contribute their ideas, energy and skills to growing the Singapore tech ecosystem,” said Mr Ye.

Nurturing top computing talents 

The Sea Olympiad Scholarship is presented to Olympiad medallists, regardless of nationality, who have been successfully admitted to NUS Computing. The inaugural recipients of the Scholarship are former IOI Gold medallists. However, the intention is to eventually expand the pool of Scholarship candidates to deserving IOI Silver and Bronze medallists, as well as potentially to other International Olympiad medallists. The full-board scholarship covers tuition fees, living allowances, accommodation, and overseas study programmes, among other expenses. Awardees of the scholarships will also be given the opportunity to intern with Sea during their studies.

“I am immensely grateful for the scholarship and the opportunities provided by NUS Computing and Sea. It is becoming a large stepping stone for me to achieve my dreams. With this assistance, I am more able to focus on my studies and plan my future past tomorrow. I really treasure this opportunity at NUS Computing and look forward to learning all I can.” said Nyamdavaa.

The Sea Olympiad Scholarship will be presented to at least one student every year until 2024. Besides the Scholarship, Sea is also behind the largest-ever corporate gift received by NUS of S$50 million in 2021 to support the advancement of cutting-edge research and education at NUS Computing. Sea is also a regular sponsor of the NUS International Collegiate Programming Contest and the National Olympiad in Informatics since 2014, and has actively supported various other activities conducted by NUS Computing, including the School of Computing Term Project Showcase (STePS) and Career Fair.