The International Bebras Challenge on Informatics is an annual computer science competition for primary and secondary school students around the world. With 96 member countries and more than 2.5 million participating students as on 2026, the competition is the largest computer science competition in the world.

Format

The Bebras is a 45-minute multiple-choice test with 15 problems. The problems are divided into three pairs of 5, and classified as "easy", "medium" and "hard". In most countries, the competition is administered through a web system that automatically scores each participant's work. The pool of Bebras problems is agreed upon during the annual international "Bebras Task Workshop" by the representatives of all member countries.

History

Originally founded by the University of Vilnius and first administered in Lithuania in 2004, the Bebras competition is named after Lithuanian word "Bebras" which translates to "beaver". The competition has been subject of research and several dozen publications.

In 2015, the Bebras organization was awarded the Microsoft-sponsored "Best Practices in Education Award" by Informatics Europe. In 2019 Google awarded Bebras Indonesia a $1 million grant to support the program and further train teachers in the field of computer science.

By 2022, there were two and a half million global participants.

Bebras in the United Kingdom

The "UK Bebras Challenge" is organised by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the United Kingdom. In 2024 the challenge was taken by 467,190 young people across the UK.

Members

As of 2025, there are 61 full members and 35 provisional members.

Full members

Provisional members

External links