Four Australian high school students have won gold, silver and bronze in an international computer programming competition.
The team of four students has achieved Australia’s best ever result at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), returning from the event with one gold, two silver and one bronze medal.
Dr Benjamin Burton, Australian team leader, said: “I am immensely proud of the entire team, and the results are a tribute to the massive amount of work they have put in throughout the year.”
The IOI is part of the International Science Olympiads, which is sanctioned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The competition involves 10 hours of programming, with participants from 90 countries.
Jack Murray of Melbourne’s De la Salle College took home the gold medal, recording the ninth highest score in the competition.
The silver medals went to Harry Slatyer of Canberra’s Narrabundah College and Jarrah Lacko of Sydney’s James Ruse Agricultural High School.
Xi Chen, also of James Ruse, won a bronze medal.
The team is not new to programming glory: Murray and Lacko won silver medals in the previous years’ competitions.
The team is selected based partly on the results of the Australian Informatics Olympiad, which is put together by the Australian Mathematics Trust.
Professor Peter Taylor, executive director of the trust, said: “The result is a tribute to Dr Burton, a former mathematics Olympiad Gold Medallist, who has developed the training program from scratch over a 10-year period in difficult circumstances.”
