Final IOI Preparations

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is the pinnacle of programming competitions for high school students. Getting the opportunity to lead your countries team is a great honour, one which I get for a second time at IOI 2008 starting in a weeks time. This year it's in Egypt, making it the second IOI on the African continent. Need I even say how excited I am to finally get the opportunity to visit this amazing country holding some of the world's most famous monuments, including the magnificent pyramids.


The South African team for this year was announced in May this year, but one of the members withdrew due to personal issues, otherwise we would have two brothers (a first for IOI?). The team I will be taking to Egypt, along with Peter Waker:

1. Mark Danoher: 1st in SACO 2007 and participated in IOI 2007
2. Schalk-Willem Krüger: Shown great success and is young enough to compete until IOI 2010
3. Saadiq Moolla: Narrowly missed the team in 2007 and participated in IMO 2006/7
4. Robert Ketteringham: Reserve called up last minute and is eligible to compete in IOI 2009

I will be presenting a paper at the second IOI Conference held in conjunction with the IOI. It is titled "Challenges Running a Computer Olympiad in South Africa", which outline the format of the various rounds of the SACO and identifies the challenges we face and how we have tackled them.

The team gathers together for one final training camp starting Tuesday. We depart on Egypt Air on Friday, arriving early Saturday morning. We hope to have a prosperous IOI, and I at least really look forward to enjoying what our fellow Africans have prepared for us (schedule here). I also look forward to once again meeting some of the top international talent, which is always worth the trip on its own. Keep your eyes on this blog for our experience in the ancient land.