Team South Africa clinched two bronze medals and an honourable mention at the 2024 International Olympiad in Informatics!
Alexandria, Egypt (20 September 2024) — The South African team proved their programming chops at the 36th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI 2024), bagging two bronze medals and an honourable mention at the most prestigious competition for young computer whizzes.
Held in Alexandria, Egypt, earlier this month, young hotshots from 91 countries vied to make their countries proud. Here, 362 competitors were given a series of complex coding challenges over two intense days of competition to prove both their skills and their ability to crumble or crack the code under pressure.
Team South Africa consisted of four bright minds selected from the top talent pool in the 2023 Programming Olympiad as part of the South African Computer Olympiads and a flagship initiative of the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA).
They are Minkyum and Youkyum Kim of Reddam House in Durbanville, Hugo Bruwer of Paarl Boys’ High and Yian Xu of Redhill High, led by team leader Benjamin Kleyn, a BSc Mathematics student.
Minkyum and Hugo claimed a bronze accolade each, while Youkyum earned the honourable mention!
It was a big moment for the continent, with Kamohelo Motloung, South African Computer Olympiads Manager and IITPSA Education Officer, explaining that participation from Africa was limited.
“A special project is planned to get more countries from Africa to participate in future. The possibility of a continental contest for Africa was also discussed.”
Explaining how the competition works, Benjamin shares:
“There were two contest days, and three tasks each worth 100 points per day. Contestants had 5 hours on each day to score points on the tasks. The top half of contestants received medals. Gold, Silver and Bronze medals were awarded in a 1:2:3 ratio. Honourable mentions were also awarded to those who placed in the top half on one of the days, but not overall.”
But, it wasn’t all work and no play. Team South Africa also got to enjoy other culturally rich activities outside of the Olympiad, such as visions of the breathtaking pyramids and Alexandria’s beaches and a tour of the Grand Egyptian Museum.
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