They faced programming challenges ranging from dungeons game to DNA. Thus, bagging three bronze medals at the world’s most prestigious and most difficult competitive programming event in the world was no mean feat for these Filipino high-school students.
Vincent de la Cruz, Raphael Dylan Dalida and Frederick Ivan Tan each brought home a bronze medal from the recent 33rd International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), besting hundreds of contestants from over 80 countries.
The IOI is one of the world’s biggest science olympiads. The two-day competition—hosted this year by Singapore from June 19 to 25—was held online due to the pandemic.
It featured a gauntlet of programming challenges that tested the competitors’ coding skills and creativity, with problems involving everything from a dungeons game to mutating DNA.
De la Cruz, a 12th-grader at the Valenzuela City School of Mathematics and Science, scored the highest from the Philippine contingent at 92nd place out of 351 competitors.
Meanwhile, Dalida came in at 119th place and Tan finished in 136th place. The two are 10th- and 11th-grade pupils, respectively, at the Philippine Science High School-Main Campus.
The fourth member of the Philippine team, Saint Jude Catholic School’s 12th-grader Steven Reyes, finished at a respectable 216th place.
The Philippine team leader, Vernon Gutierrez, was ecstatic over the victory.
“A huge shout-out to our students! The Philippine Team bagged the most medals in a year, despite the difficulties presented by the pandemic,” he enthused.
“This wouldn’t be possible without the help of the volunteers in our organization, NOI.PH [National Olympiad in Informatics-Philippines], and the continuous support of DOST-SEI,” Gutierrez added
“The IOI is a proving ground for… the brightest [young] minds who are in the best position to solve the world’s problems. Apart from coding skills, contestants also need to think on their feet and find solutions to anything that’s thrown at them,” said NOI.PH President Marte Solita.
NOI.PH organized the Philippine contingent in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI).
Gutierrez and Solita expressed hope that the Philippines continues its winning streak and are looking forward to bringing more participants as well as trainers and volunteers to the prestigious competition.
S&T Media Services