Laszlo Zsako

He has worked at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) since 1978, initially at the then Department of Numerical and Computer Mathematics, as a program design mathematician (initially with a bachelor's degree), then as an assistant professor, assistant professor, and since 1998 as an associate professor. Since 1996, he has been the head of the Informatics Methodology Group, and since the 2006 reorganization, the head of the Department of Media and Educational Informatics. Since 2017, he has led the Methodology Program of the Faculty's Doctoral School of Informatics.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, he has been involved in researching the application possibilities of personal computers in public education, both from the didactic-methodological and the use in a wide variety of subjects. He participated in the development of the National Core Curriculum (NAT) and several versions of the framework curricula. His university teaching tasks were related to teacher training courses, introductory programming subjects for computer scientists, and the Doctoral School of Informatics.

He defended his PhD thesis at ELTE in 1997. He habilitated in mathematics at the University of Debrecen (DE) in 2007; in computer science at ELTE in 2008.

Since 1992, he has participated in the organization of national conferences of IT teachers (INFO ÉRA, INFO SAVARIA), which are attended by 6-700 teachers annually. From the beginning, he was the chairman of the program committee of the INFODIDACT international methodological conference related to the further training "Regulation and methodology of IT education in public education". He was a member of the program committees of several international conferences and professional journals.

Since 1985, it has organized IT competitions for secondary and primary school students: Tihamér Nemes, Logo, Olympic Selection Competition, National Secondary School IT Competition (OKTV), Gyula Imre Izsák Complex Natural Science Competition, János Neumann International Software Product Competition.
In 2002, he launched the Neumann János Talent Development Program, a regional and national professional circle system for talented students in IT. Since 2016, the Neumann Talent Development Circle of the ELTE Faculty of Informatics (IK) has been based on this as input.
Since 2008, he has organized a talent-building programming competition for university students, which is the basis for international university competitions.
He actively participated in the organization of international IT competitions (IOI - International Olympiad in Informatics, CEOI - Central European Olympiad in Informatics); until 2018, he was a team leader in 36 Olympiads, and organized 5 student Olympiads in Hungary, where he was the chairman of the organizing committee.

From 2013, he was the vice president of the John Neumann Computer Science Society (NJSZT).

He has received 19 ministerial commendations. Other awards include: Tarján Award (NJSZT, 1987); Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, Civil Division (2002); IT Teacher of the Year Award (Association of Leading IT Professionals (VISZ), 2006), IOI special award (IOI International Committee, 2009), Pro Ingenio Award (ELTE, 2015); Bonis Bona Award for the Nation's Talents (Ministry of Human Resources, 2015); Lifetime Achievement Award for Talent Service (National Talent Support Council, 2020); Posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award (NJSZT, 2024).