The country is
full of talent.
We go find it.
IFSET runs Sri Lanka’s national olympiads in economics, artificial intelligence and logic. We find the students who can do this, train them, and take them abroad to compete.
Team Sri Lanka · 2026
IOAI 2026
Astana, Kazakhstan · 2–8 August 2026
- Team Leader
Shenal Kotuwewatta
- Contestants
Dilina Weragama
Sivali Central College
bronzeChanitha Denagama
Sivali Central College
honourable mention
- Founded
- 2020Founded
- National olympiads
- 3National olympiads
- IEO teams sent
- 7IEO teams sent
- International medals
- 10International medals
The olympiads
Three national selections.
All of them are free, all of them are open to any school in Sri Lanka, and each one ends with a team going abroad.
How it works
What entering actually looks like.
Four steps, and they are the same whichever olympiad you sit.
- 01
Sit the opening round online
Free, open to every school in the country, and sat from wherever you are. You do not need a teacher to nominate you and you do not pay to enter.
- 02
Get through to the final
Papers are marked with names and schools stripped off, so what carries you forward is how well you reasoned. The final round is sat in person.
- 03
Train with the squad
If you make the shortlist you join a training programme: theory, old problems, and coaching from people who have sat these competitions themselves.
- 04
Go and compete
The final team travels to the international olympiad and takes on the best school students in the world.
Track record
Our students have been winning medals since the first year.
10 international medals so far, at the Economics Olympiad and now at the AI Olympiad too.
Medallists at the IEO
- 1 silver3 bronze
Luchitha Pathirana
2020–2024
- 2 bronze
Nawid Nazar
2025–2026
- 1 bronze
Adhni Ikram
2025
- 1 bronze
Sherwain Wavita
2024
- 1 bronze
Mihan Tilakaratne
2021
Medallists at the IOAI
- 1 bronze
Dilina Weragama
2026
- 1 honourable mention
Chanitha Denagama
2026
How we work
Four things we do not compromise on.
The paper decides
Everything we run is free and open to any school in the country. A student in Anuradhapura sits exactly what a student in Colombo sits, and we mark it without knowing whose it is.
Thinking beats memorising
We write papers you cannot cram for. Given the choice, we would rather find the student who can work it out than the one who has already read it somewhere.
Selection is only half of it
Spotting talent is the easy part. Every programme runs training alongside its selection rounds, so nobody turns up to an international round underprepared.
We stay
We add an olympiad when Sri Lankan students deserve a way into a subject, and then we keep running it. None of these are one-off events.
Think you could do this?
You do not need a particular school, a tutor, or any background in the subject. Registration opens once a year on each olympiad’s own site.