BACKInformatics Olympiad
The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is the foremost high school programming competition in the world. It is the second largest science Olympiad, after the International Mathematics Olympiad, in terms of number of participating countries. Two of our students, Phoebe Zhang and Jonathon Sun, are on the New Zealand team. This places them in the top four high school students in the country. They recently travelled to Hungary to compete in the IOI, with both doing incredibly well. Phoebe placed 175th in the world, earning a Bronze Medal, and Jonathon Sun placed 188th, narrowly missing out on a medal, and instead gaining an Honourable Mention.
Phoebe had earlier this term competed in the European Girls Olympiad in Informatics (EGOI), where she placed an astonishing third, earning New Zealand’s first-ever international Gold Medal in an Informatics Olympiad. With not many girls in the IOI, Phoebe is easily in the top 10 best female high school programmers in the world.
New Zealand Programming Contest
Shortly before Phoebe and Jonathon left for Hungary, the annual New Zealand Programming Contest was held. Programmers from across the country headed to their local universities to compete. The competition is open to all, with everyone being given the same problem set. Scoring is split into divisions, from high school students to varying levels of university, through to professional teams.
Our top team, consisting of Phoebe Zhang, Jonathon Sun, and Luke Bartram, placed first in the country. This is again an incredible achievement, with the team outperforming most of the tertiary and open-category teams.
A special mention goes to some of our alumni, with Franck Chen and Ming Ray Goy in the team placing first in the Tertiary Junior category. Zalan Varga, Lucas Hebberd, and Gary Zhu placed second in Tertiary Intermediate, and Vladimir Minkov and Minko Minkov placed fifth in the Tertiary Open category (second out of the Auckland teams).
