Three South African students won Silver Medals at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) held in Merida, Mexico.  The three are part of a team of four that was selected from 15 000 participants in last year’s Standard Bank Computer Olympiad.
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The IOI is an annual competition for young computer programmers.  It is held in a different country every year.  This year 284 participants from 72 countries took part.  The competition itself takes place over two days.  On each of the competition days, the participants receive three problems.  They have five hours to write the computer programs to solve these problems.  After 5 hours the evaluators use data sets of increasing complexity to check if the program can provide the correct answers in the allocated time – often less than half a second.

The three Silver Medal winners:

Ralf Kistner, the 2005 Standard Bank Trophy winner for the highest mark in the South African Computer Olympiad – when he was still in Grade 11.  Ralf is currently in Grade 12 at Paul Roos Gymnasium in Stellenbosch.
Ralf is a regular participant in Maths Olympiads, having taken part in the 2004 Pan-African Maths Olympiad, and the 2005 International Maths Olympiad.
Ralf lists his hobbies a climbing, programming and maths.

Keegan Carruthers-Smith, who was a participant in IOI 2005 while he was a Grade 12 Learner at Pinelands High.  He is currently a first year student at the University of Cape Town.  He is a regular Olympiad participant, having excelled in the Accounting Olympiad, the Science Olympiad and the Maths Olympiad.  His other hobby?  Skate boarding.

Joshua Yudaken was one of the top students in the Standard Bank Computer Olympiad while he was still in Grade 11.  He is currently in Grade 12 at King David School, Linksfield, Johannesburg.  Like many of the other computer whizzes Joshua is a keen chess player and was vice-captain of the Gauteng provincial Chess Team.

Max Rabkin, the fourth member of the team, narrowly missed getting a medal too.  Max was in Grade 11 at Cedar House School when he won his place in the team.  He is now studying Computer Science at the University of Cape Town.

The team was delighted with the experience.  “We are proud of the medals, but we also loved the opportunity to mix with young people from more than 70 other countries.  The organizers gave us plenty of time to make new friends.”

Peter Waker, Vice President (Education & Training) of the Computer Society of South Africa comments:  “This is the best result we have had since 2001.  It is amazing that a small player like South Africa can do so well in a competition with the rest of the world.   The USA, Russia, China, Poland and Korea walk off with most medals, but three silver medals for our chaps; that is an amazing achievement.”

Adds Mike Murphy, from sponsor Standard Bank:  “Despite the negative press that the education system in South Africa continues to receive, these results show that things are not all bad. Talent is clearly still in abundance and results like this give us confidence in the future of this country.”

Donald Cook, team leader, reported that “The International Olympiad was well organized and a great success.  Our team of young contestants did very well to score 3 silver medals.  The team felt that the questions were challenging, interesting and well balanced from moderate to difficult over the two days of the competition.” Donald added that one of the second day questions was extremely difficult, and noted that only one out of 284 contestants received full marks for the most difficult question.

Among the advice the organizers had for the contestants were the following:
If you ate a pepper that is too hot for you: Rinse the mouth and drink milk, ice cream, yoghurt or tomato juice; or eat rice, bread or a fresh lemon or lime.  Do not drink water: it will make the problem worse and Spanish for “I want to eat grasshoppers”: Quiro comer chapulines.

The entire delegation consisted of:

Keegan Carruthers-Smith from Pinelands High, Cape Town (now at the University of Cape Town)

Ralf Kistner from Paul Roos Gymnasium, Stellenbosch (currently in Grade 12)

Max Rabkin from Cedar House School, Cape Town (now at the University of Cape Town)

Joshua Yudaken from King David School, Linksfield, Johannesburg (currently in Grade 12)

Donald Cook: Team Leader

Graham Poulter:  Deputy Team Leader
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Media Release by:

Peter Waker
Manager: Standard Bank/CSSA Computer Olympiad
e-mail:       info@olympiad.org.za
Phone:       021-448-7864
Fax:           021-447-8410
www.olympiad.org.za

For photographs, please contact info@olympiad.org.za

PHOTOGRAPHS AVAILABLE:

Team (4 persons)
Team with Team Leaders (6 persons)
Deputy Team Leader and Pyramid
Team with Medals (4 persons)
Team with Medals – close-up (4 persons)
Team with Medals and Team Leaders (6 persons)
Medal winners with certificates (3 persons)
Medals winners with certificates – close-up (3 persons)
Ralf Kistner with medal and certificate
Joshua Yudaken with medal and certificate
Keegan Carruthers-Smith with medal and certificate

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