International competitions play an important role in the education of highly talented secondary school students opening new possibilities to extend their knowledge in sciences.
There are many types of competitions, the International Conference of Young Scientists (ICYS) is a is a special type of individual competition, in physics, mathematics, computer science and ecology for 14-18 year-old secondary school students. Every participant has to prepare a research report on a subject chosen by herself/himself from any part of the above mentioned sciences. The language of these ten-minute reports is English and an international jury evaluates and rewards the presentations.
Every year generally 60-70 lectures are delivered in 4 section on the Conference. This kind of competitions has importance in teaching the students:
Perhaps most of the participating students will later become students at various universities and will be researchers reporting at scientific conferences (for instance like this one), this first appearance may be a decisive factor in their future scientific career.