Learners from three provinces have taken the top places in the 2019 South African Programming Olympiad which is now in its 36th year.
The gold medal winner was Andi Qu, a grade 11 learner at St John’s College, Johannesburg, who won the Standard Bank Trophy. This marks the return of the coveted trophy to Gauteng after three years in the Western Cape. Qu says he likes computational geometry and enjoys “cool, ad-hoc problems” more than the “maths and data structure questions”. Earlier this year, he represented South Africa at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in Azerbaijan. He has school honours for music and academics, and plans to study computer science and “probably AI.”
Aaron Naidu of KwaZulu-Natal, and Taariq Mowzer of the Western Cape won the two silver medals. Naidu, in grade 12 at Eden College, says he enjoys “entering all the competitions and Olympiads because they provide challenging questions that allow me to hone my skills and see how I compare to the best students in the country.” He also came top in the 2019 SA Mathematics Olympiad. Mowzer, of Fairbairn College, and two-time winner of the Programming Olympiad gold medal, says that using past papers to prepare for the finals give “a comprehensive understanding of where you struggle.”
Three Western Cape learners in grade 12 won the bronze medals for the 2019 Programming Olympiad: Annekin Meyburgh (Hoërskool Bellville), Emile van der Walt (Hoërskool Jan van Riebeeck) and Adri Wessels (Curro Durbanville).
In July, four of the above six Programming Olympiad medal winners also won bronze medals at the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) in England – Mowzer, Naidu, Van der Walt and Wessels.
Michael Cameron, manager of the SA Computer Olympiad, says: “There is great benefit when teachers enter their learners in contests. A top performer in any class pulls up the level of all. A teacher who grasps this will take time to enter competitive events that nurture computational thinking. The Programming Olympiad not only celebrates the top programmers in schools nationwide, giving certificates to the top 50% of the 2 500 participants, it also grows coding talent for Africa.”
He adds that support is available. “Since July, we have an online evaluator, https://saco-evaluator.org.za for keen learners to practise past questions. It provides feedback for programs written in Python, Pascal (for Delphi users), Java, and C++,” he says.
