TEHRAN – Over 1,100  participants from 65 countries, including Pakistan, Oman, Vietnam, Tunisia, India, Turkey,  Bangladesh, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Romania, will attend the second international technology Olympics, which is planned to be held from October 27 to 30, at Pardis Technology Park, Tehran.

The first international technology Olympics was held last year, attracting over 6,300 participants from Iran and other countries. This year, the number of elite Iranian students participating in the event has risen to over 11,000, ISNA quoted Hossein Afshin, the vice president for science, technology, and knowledge-based economy, as saying.

The participants will compete in five different fields, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, programming, robotics, drones, and Internet of Things (IOT). Each of these competitions consists of several leagues, covering different specialized areas within the field.

The programming section includes Front-end, Python/Django, Algorithms, and Golang leagues; the AI section covers text processing, data processing, and image processing leagues.

The IOT section focuses on challenges such as smart system design, crisis management, and energy consumption optimization.

The robotics section involves lightweight, heavyweight, and student leagues, and the drone section has various competitions in different fields such as autonomous missions, group flying, and flight intelligence.

The event aims to identify talented individuals, train them, and help them get employed at the national and international levels, Afshin said.

Iran ranks 72 in technology, innovation

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Technology and Innovation Report 2025, Iran is ranked among upper middle-income countries, ranking 72nd among 166 countries.

The country’s ranking has improved by one position compared to 2022.

UNCTAD has categorized 17 types of technologies as frontier technologies, including artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data, 5G, 3D printing, robotics, drone technology, solar photovoltaic, concentrated solar power, biofuels, biogas and biomass, wind energy, green hydrogen, electric vehicles, nanotechnology, and gene editing.

The Technology and Innovation Report 2025: Inclusive Artificial Intelligence for Development surveys the complex artificial intelligence landscape, aiming to help decision-makers design science, technology, and innovation policies that foster inclusive technological progress.

The Report 2025 calls for AI that puts people first and is shaped through global cooperation in which all countries have a say. The Report identifies three key leverage points – infrastructure, data, and skills – offering a broad socioeconomic perspective on AI while analyzing requirements and policies to promote sustainable industrialization and innovation.

The sub-indices of readiness for frontier technologies in 2025 show that Iran’s best ranking is in the research and development sub-index (35th in the world).

In the finance sub-index, the country’s ranking has improved from 62 in 2022 to 56 in 2025. In other sub-indexes like skills and the establishment of information and communication technology, its ranking has lowered from 74 and 78 in 2022 to 82 and 94 in 2025, respectively.

MT/MG