NEW DELHI: Delhi schoolboy Akshat Bubna has become the first Indian student to win a gold medal in the International Olympiad in Informatics in Taiwan.

18-year-old Bubna passed his CBSE (12th) exam from Amity International School here with over 96 percent marks and is heading for the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to do a double major in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Incidentally, this was Bubna's second medal, having won a bronze in the Informatics Olympiad last year in Brisbane (Australia).

"I had actually applied for MIT much before I got this gold medal in Taiwan (July 7-14) IOI Olympiad finals. In fact, my bronze medal winning performance last year, did help me a lot in securing a berth in MIT. We were prepared for this Olympiad by IIT-ians who have participated in the event earlier," Bubna, who will be leaving for the U.S. tomorrow, told PTI.

In fact, Indian students have done really well this time with Malvika Joshi, schooled in Chashak Gurukul, Mumbai, becoming the first girl from India to bag a medal at this prestigious event, winning a silver.

Among the bronze medal winners across various nations was India's Pushkar Mishra of DPS (RK Puram).

The International Olympiad in Informatics is one of the five international science Olympiads, organised all across the world. The primary aim of the IOI is to persuade students to take interest in Informatics and Information Technology.

The students' were guided in the competition by Prof Madhavan Mukund (Dean of Studies), Chennai Mathematical Institute.