Competitive programming (informatics olympiads) · INDIA

Swasti Patil

Pune student listed as “Unschooled” in every official table who holds India’s strongest girls’-olympiad record: INOI bronze 2025 and 2026 (IOITC qualifier both years); EGOI-2025 BRONZE (Germany); EGOI-2026 GOLD (Cesenatico, Italy) — “India’s first ever gold medal at EGOI” in IARCS’s own words. Came to computing through mathematics (Ganit Manthan), where she also spent over a year as a teaching assistant.

No age published by any source; Class 9 at INOI-2026 (February 2026)

Maharashtra · India

Swasti Patil with the Indian flag and her bronze medal from EGOI-2025 in Germany — the photograph dates from 2025, a year before her gold in Italy
Image source ↗ · Vichar Vatika (Ganit Manthan)
Source photograph · credit and provenance below

BEHIND THE RESULT

The achievement

In May 2026, in Cesenatico, Italy, Swasti Vitthal Patil won a gold medal at the European Girls’ Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI). IARCS, the body that runs India’s computing olympiad programme, recorded the result in words that carry their own weight: it was “India’s first ever gold medal at EGOI”. She was part of a four-member Indian team in which every contestant was recognised — Mansi Sane won silver, Diya Sathishdev bronze, and Lyra Floyd Gonsalves an Honourable Mention.

The road there

Her official listings describe her schooling in just two words — “Unschooled, Pune” — and she reached Italy through the standard national pathway. At INOI-2025, the national olympiad, she won a bronze medal as a Class 8 student and qualified for the IOI Training Camp. Shortlisted for the EGOI-2025 team, she was selected, travelled to Germany in July 2025, and came home with a bronze medal. A year later the pattern repeated a level higher: INOI-2026 bronze in Class 9, a second training-camp qualification, a second EGOI selection — and this time gold.

A spark to explore

Her route into computing began with mathematics. Vichar Vatika, which runs the Ganit Manthan programme, records that Swasti was part of Ganit Manthan for multiple years, that her passion for maths led to a deeper passion for computer science, and that she spent more than a year as a teaching assistant on the course — teaching the subject she was still rising in herself. A first-ever gold usually changes what the next group of students believes is possible — what would you attempt if you stopped assuming it could not be done by someone from your school, or from no school at all? That is a question from us, not part of her record.

Source-based story · the activities are prompts for readers.

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The achievement, in context.

EGOI 2026 — Gold Medal (India’s first ever, per IARCS); EGOI 2025 — Bronze Medal; INOI — Bronze Medal 2025, 2026

2026-05-18 · Supporting source ↗

Sources you can explore.

IARCS · Indian Computing Olympiad archives 2026 (EGOI-2026 report) ↗Official olympiad report

IARCS · official INOI-2026 results ↗Official olympiad results

IARCS · official INOI-2025 results ↗Official olympiad results

Vichar Vatika (Ganit Manthan) · Accomplishments ↗Programme profile

Original source ↗

Another spark to discover.

Aryan Singh

Built AgRobot, a solar-powered AI and IoT farm robot, over four years at his school’s Atal Tinkering Lab in Kota; received the PMRBP 2024 (Science & Technology) as the category’s sole recipient.

17 in January 2024 (PTI)

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Science India (photograph courtesy Aryan Singh) ↗Source photograph · see credit

Animal sciences — wearable gait analysis

Maharashtra · India

Anshul Bhatt

Built PawPath, an IMU-based gait-detection and disease-screening tool for dogs (project ANIM005), which won the Second Award in Animal Sciences at Regeneron ISEF 2025. Also a bridge world champion: three Under-16 golds at the 2022 World Youth Transnational Bridge Championships.

16 in 2025 (YourStory profile); born October 2008 (Wikipedia, secondary)

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NewsVoir ↗Source photograph · see credit

Computational biology and bioinformatics

Karnataka · India

Ananya Ganapathy

Machine-learning prediction of colorectal cancer from gut-microbiome biomarkers (project CBIO003), which won a Fourth Award in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Regeneron ISEF 2025. Student at The International School Bangalore.

Age not published in any source; a student of The International School Bangalore

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Ananya Ganapathy (via ananyaganapathy.com) ↗Source photograph · see credit