HBHS Old Boy Prepares to Take on the World

New Zealand's team for the 2010 International Olympiad in Informatics has arrived in Canada for the 2010 competition.  Boris Pfahringer, a student at the University of Waikato (HBHS Yr 13, 2009), last week joined the other three team members, Jamie McCloskey, Logan Glasson and Tony Sun for an intensive pre-departure training camp hosted by the University of Auckland.  Margot Phillipps, director of the New Zealand Olympiad in Informatics organised the camp to give the students a chance to practice their skills built up over the year, and focus on the upcoming event.  “The students have been working steadily towards the competition," said Phillipps.  “They have been getting competition practice in on-line contests hosted by Australia, the USA and Croatia.  All that remains is the final build-up to make sure we do as well as possible."

The annual competition features over 300 of the world’s top computer science high school students, who are selected through national computing contests.  250,000 young people from some 100 countries compete each year to represent their country at the IOI, the world’s premier high school programming competition.  Troy Vasiga, chair of the IOI 2010 comments “These are top students from around the world who will be the leading computer scientists in their respective countries in the years ahead.  They are motivated, ready to learn and eager to solve the world’s problems.” The team is accompanied by Phillipps and training Director, Robert Bowmaker. The competition will take place at the University of Waterloo in southern Ontario.  It  is split over two days, 16 and 18 August. Each competition session lasts 5 hours in which competitors will have to demonstrate their skills in problem analysis, design of algorithms and data structures, programming and testing.  Their enthusiasm, dedication and long hours of practice will be put to the test in spirited but friendly competition.  

Before departing, the New Zealand Team also had an opportunity to meet some of their sponsors with visits to Solnet and Datacom.  Phillipps acknowledged the support received from these sponsors as well as the Universities of Canterbury and Auckland, Ace Training and Development, Netvalue, the Royal Society of New Zealand and several anonymous donors.  “Some of these sponsors have been with us since New Zealand sent its first team to the IOI in Mexico in 2006.  They have watched as our teams have found their feet and made the medal board.  In 2008 Ronald Chan won a silver medal and, last year, two members of the current team, Jamie McCloskey and Boris Pfahringer won bronze medals.   We are hoping to do even better this year.”