Six Filipino students traveled to Singapore to compete in their national informatics olympiad. The delegation consisted of three Grade 12 students and three Grade 10 students. They were chosen among the top ten participants in the recently concluded NOI.PH 2018 OnSite Finals.
NOI.PH trainers Kevin Atienza and Robin Yu attended the event as the team leaders. Several coaches and supportive parents attended as well. In particular, Coach Cary Von Alano of PSHS Eastern Visayas accompanied Franz Cesista. Meanwhile, Coach John Rainer Joaquin of PSHS Bicol Region accompanied Miko Surara. In addition, Coach Edlen Sanchez of PSHS Main accompanied Kyle Dulay. The parents of the other half of the delegation attended to support their children as well.
Results
Dan Baterisna brought home the country’s second Singapore Olympiad gold medal. He scored in all five tasks and got a perfect score for the CollectingMushrooms and Journey tasks. Dan is the first Filipino Grade 10 student to accomplish such a feat. The first Filipino gold medalist to the Singapore olympiad was Robin Yu.
The rest of the delegation all won silver medals. Andrew Ting managed is on a medal streak as he grabs his second silver medal. Second-timers Franz Cesista and Miko Surara went up the ranks. This time, both of them took home silver – a great improvement from last year‘s bronze. Despite it being their first time in the Singapore NOI, Dion Ong and Kyle Dulay perfomed quite well. They both garnered enough points to get a silver medal as well. Among the six Philippine delegates, Dion was the only one to completely solve the LightningRod task.
The medals are awarded to the invited participants are determined based on their performance in relation to the local delegation. These results are posted on Singapore’s olympiad website.
About The Contest
The contest itself consisted of a five-hour session consisting of five tasks. Each contestant must write a program that outputs an answer to the task given any set of input values within the constraints of the problem. The program must be correct and efficient. That is, the program must output the correct answers and produce them within the allotted time limit.
The Philippines has been joining the Singapore National Olympiad (NOI.SG) ever since they opened the contest to foreign participants back in 2016. More information on the contest can be found here.
Conclusion
All six participants got at least a silver medal. This is a first in Philippine programming. None of this would have been possible without the diligence of our students, the support provided by their coaches and parents, the training provided by the volunteers, and the help extended by our sponsors.
With everyone working together towards the growth of science education in the country, we hope to see a generation of critical thinkers especially in a time where misinformation is prevalent in society.
Photos
Special thanks to Mr. Alex Ting and Coach John Rainer Joaquin for the photos!
