Work in progress — Initiating the Beaver contest on computer science and computer fluency in Israel

Attracting students to computer science studies has always been a challenge. Contests play an important role as a source of inspiration and can increase students´ interest in the contest´s related domain. The Beaver international contest on computer science and computer fluency was established with the goal of conveying computer science concepts to as many youngsters as possible and of motivating them to become more interested in computing. For the last few years the contest has been operating in several countries in Europe (http://www.bebras.org). Recently, in order to attract youngsters to study computer science, it was planned to initiate the Beaver project in Israel, while adapting its framework to the requirements of the national educational system.