Gauteng learners dominated the podium in the latest Computer Applications Olympiad, held at Bergvliet High School during the winter school holidays.
The Computer Applications Olympiad tests technical ability with documents, spreadsheets and databases, as taught in the school subject CAT (Computer Applications Technology).
The final four-hour round of the Olympiad required the 12 finalists – drawn from 5 226 participants in the qualifying rounds – to be creative with data by anticipating problems, spotting trends and imagining possible solutions.
A massive data set was used – hundreds of thousands of anonymised records from a decade of the Cape Town Cycle Tour. The high school finalists not only analysed the data, they also responded to a trend it revealed about youth entries. They had to illustrate the trend in an informative graphic that would visually promote the benefits of participation in this cycling event to teenagers.
The problems were set to show that managing big data is a key skill that will offer employment opportunities.
Sean Groenewald of Hoërskool Randburg claimed gold in the 2018 Computer Applications Olympiad.
He is in grade 12 and loves computer challenges – he was also a finalist in the Programming Olympiad in 2017. He plans to study Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Cape Town and says he wants to work for Google. As the gold medalist, he is eligible for a first-year scholarship to study at the University of Cape Town in 2019.
Two silver medals were awarded: one to Shan O’Neil, also of Hoërskool Randburg, who plans to study Computer Science at UNSW in Sydney; the other to Daniel Olivier from Paul Roos Gymnasium in Stellenbosch, who plans to study Computer Science at the University of Stellenbosch.
Both of Gauteng’s two bronze medal winners, Christopher Dovale, head boy at Boksburg High, and Heather Wimberley of Brescia House, are keen to study mechanical engineering and robotics. The third bronze medal winner, Dylan Nel of The Hill College in Mill Park in Port Elizabeth, plans to study digital arts, programming and game design.