Q&A with International Olympiad in Informatics Silver Medallist

Ranking 40th of 329 participants, this result is an incredible step up from the bronze medal earned in Egypt last year. Here are his reflections on the event:

What did the IOI competition entail?

The IOI competition took place over two days. Each day had three problems over five hours – a lot longer than any school exam! Each problem was an algorithmic task where we had to write code that would solve a problem.

For example, a task might provide some cities and the lengths of roads connecting them, and the program would have to find the shortest distance from one city to another.

What did you enjoy most about this year’s IOI?

I particularly enjoyed this year because the problems were more what we call ‘non-standard’ – rather than relying on learnt algorithms, techniques and data structures, they involved more thinking and problem solving than usual.

Did you enjoy your time in Bolivia?

It was my first time visiting South America, and Sucre has definitely left me a good impression. Although we didn’t really get much of a chance to experience local culture, the locals we encountered, like our team guide, were all really nice. Sucre was also probably the highest city I’ve ever been to, at almost 3,000 metres above sea level! The food was great too; it was very multicultural.

What will you take away from the experience?

The most memorable thing from the experience was probably not the competition itself but the people from other teams that we met. I made friends with students from teams all over the world, like Canada, China, Japan, the UK and the US. I think the most enjoyable part was being able to spend a week amongst so many like-minded people and develop new relationships.