NZ duo among top computer programmers

Medal winners: Boris Pfahringer (left) and Jamie McCloskey (right).

Two NZers have proudly taken the stage to receive bronze medals at the world’s foremost and most prestigious programming contest for high school students, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Jamie McCloskey from Akaora and Boris Pfahringer from Hamilton are thrilled with their success in the 2009 International Olympiad in Informatics.

“To be one of the medal winners is fantastic,” said Mr Pfahringer who is a student at Hamilton Boys’ High School.

The competition took place over two five-hour days and the students were given four programming problems each day.

“We had to find and implement efficient algorithms to solve the problems, with run-time and memory limitations on the resulting program. The contest was very difficult and it was a nerve-racking wait for the medal ceremony,” said Mr Pfahringer.

Mr McCloskey, a year 11 student at Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti, is well aware of the standard expected as he also represented NZ last year in Cairo.

“The competition is the culmination of months of hard work,” he reflected “with lots of training and contests.

“We get lots of support from the NZ Olympiad in Informatics organisation (NZOI), from our schools, from individual mentors and of course sponsors who have assisted with travel and training.”

One of the highlights for the team was meeting the other contestants – 310 contestants from approximately 80 countries took part in the arduous competition.

NZ first competed in the IOI in 2006 and this is the second year in a row that Kiwis have appeared on the medal list.

Margot Phillipps, the executive director of the NZOI, said that she was excited that NZ has proven itself again this year.

“We are a small country, with no National Computer Science curriculum so winning two medals is a huge achievement.

“We have demonstrated that our students can hold their own at international levels.”