Dan Alden Baterisna
grade 11, De La Salle University Senior High School

Dan likes playing with all things tech. Between school and practice, he is busy learning the intricacies of the bottom lane and watching speedrun videos online. He plans on studying computer science in college and hopes to give back to the competitive programming community, especially in the Philippines. He won a silver medal at the IOI in Tsukuba, Japan in 2018.

Dion Stephan Ong
grade 11, Ateneo de Manila Senior High School

Dion has dabbled in math for a while. In elementary and high school, he was the national winner of the Metrobank Math Challenge. This year, he will compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad. Lately, he discovered informatics and found the shift to algorithms instinctive. In college, he plans to pursue computer science to develop smart cities.

Steven Reyes
grade 10, Saint Jude Catholic School

Steven first discovered programming around 5 years ago when he created circuits and logic gates in Minecraft. Creating these contraptions are like solving computational problems, both of which he enjoys indulging in. The joy he finds in problem-solving extends to the different math, science, and programming competitions he participates in, and even to teaching fellow schoolmates how to approach various kinds of puzzles.

Ron Mikhael Surara
grade 11, Philippine Science High School – Bicol Region Campus

Miko initially joined NOI for the freebies but continued to pursue it as he grew to love solving algorithmic problems. He has been joining the NOI for four years, always shortlisted for the IOI team in every attempt. Formerly, he was President of the Advanced Programming Club (APC) in his school. Although not a member of this club anymore, he still teaches younger aspiring students. When he’s not solving algorithmic problems, he plays games such as LoL and Osu with his friends and reads manga and books. He also likes to watch anime, series, and movies. He also has interests in drawing and calligraphy, as well as in sports, especially table tennis and lawn tennis. He plans to take computer science in college and use his programming skills to help improve other fields in science and technology.

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Dan Alden Baterisna won a gold medal, making this his second year in a row of winning gold after last year’s performance. Ron Mikhael Surara, Dion Stephan Ong, and Steven Chua won silver, while Clyde Lawrence Borrega and Raphael Dylan Dalida won bronze.

Dan’s win is the country’s third gold medal from the Singapore tilt; with Robin Christopher Yu being the country’s first gold medalist. The haul marks Ron’s and Dion’s second silver medals. Among the delegation, Steven, Clyde, and Raphael ranked well despite being first-timers to the competition.

Students from Singapore joined with participants from other foreign countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Philippines has been joining the Singapore National Olympiad (NOI.SG) ever since they opened the contest to foreign participants back in 2016.

The six students were chosen based on their scores in the Singapore NOI Preliminary Round, where they ranked the best among all Filipino participants. The students were accompanied by NOI.PH trainers Vernon Gutierrez and Robin Yu, along with several other coaches and parents.

The contest consisted of a five-hour session consisting of five problems, held in the I³ Building of the campus. Each contestant must write a program that outputs an answer to the problem given a set of inputs, following the constraints given in the problem’s statement.

A practice round was held the previous day, on March 22, 2019. Other events were also held, such as Capture the Flag, a computer security competition where participants apply their programming skills to challenges in web, networking, reverse engineering, cryptography, and related fields. Dan placed within the top ten in this event and won a power bank.

Photos

Photos from Vernon Gutierrez.

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Dan Baterisna
grade 10, Colegio San Agustin Makati

Dan Baterisna is one who enjoys the social aspects of academic contests. He participates in a lot of team contests, providing his science and technology expertise in general knowledge competitions. When he’s not busy pwning algorithmic challenges, you will most likely see him pwning his friends in online games such as Rules of Survival. In the future, he plans to take up computer science with the goal of eventually working with local tech startups.

Franz Cesista
grade 12, Philippine Science High School – Eastern Visayas Campus
coach: Cary Von Alano

Franz Cesista is not content with just learning, he also enjoys sharing it to his interested peers. He shares what he learns in the countless contests and seminars by lecturing, for example, in his school’s programming club. His pursuit of knowledge manifests as well when he unwinds as he often plays complex simulation games such as Factorio. For college, he plans to study mathematics and eventually focus on artificial intelligence.

CJ Quines
grade 12, Valenzuela City School of Mathematics and Science
coach: Ruel Dogma

CJ Quines is the artsy type of scientist. His hobbies include calligraphy, ukelele, and the art of proving mathematical theorems. In fact he recently placed second in a science fair sponsored by Intel. There, he tackled a special case of an NP-complete problem related to planar graphs. He also maintains a blog where he writes about his experiences in various competitions and conferences. After college, he plans on becoming a data scientist.

Andrew Ting
grade 12, Xavier School San Juan

Andrew Ting has been drumming in his school’s pep rallies since grade school. He found his interest in programming through the game LittleBigPlanet. When he’s not beating the drums, he is likely drumming up interest in algorithms as an officer of his school’s programming club. As a student who’s into game dev, Andrew plans to transition from playing rhythm games to developing them by taking up computer science in college.

The team will be accompanied by Team Leaders Kevin Atienza and Vernon Gutierrez.

   

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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!

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Results

Robin Yu (Xavier School) led the ranks taking home a GOLD, and placing 5th overall and 3rd among foreign competitors.

Andrew Ting (Xavier School), clutched a SILVER, together with Farrell Eldrian Wu (MGC New Life Christian Academy).

Franz Louis Cesista (Philippine Science High School – Eastern Visayas Campus), Ron Mikhael Surara (Philippine Science High School – Bicol Region Campus), and Kim Bryann Tuico (Manila Science High School), were all awarded BRONZE medals.

Sven Sorupia (Philippine Science High School Main Campus) joined the team as an unofficial competitor.

Kicked-off with a briefing at the COM 1 Auditorium that was filled to the brim with hundreds of competitors, these students representing the Philippines spent the day battling wits against their peers from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Gold and silver medalists at the Singapore NOI are given Special Consideration in Admissions into NUS.

Photos

From Mr. Alex Ting

Conclusion

We congratulate everyone who were part of this event, especially those who won medals and honorable mentions.

We profusely thank our hosts led by its Chair, Prof Dr Sun Teck Tan, and Vice Chair Dr Steven Halim, and the rest of the organizing committee, for enabling the team from the Philippines to partake in this momentous and historical event.

We further recognize the parents and teachers who joined the delegation including Mr Reginald Yu, Mr Alex Ting, Mrs Leonora Ting, Mr Frankie Wu, Mr Von Alano, Mr Ron Surara, Mrs Tintin Surara, Mr John Rainer Joaquin, Mr Romer Abella, and Mr Edge Angeles.

We also thank Mr Payton Yao and Mr Wilson Chua for being our on-ground leads and coordinators in Singapore.

Team Philippines to the 20th Singapore National Olympiad in Informatics were carefully selected from the NOI.PH 2017 Finalists.

May this inspire more Filipinos, especially the youth, to rise up to the challenge in making our country, the ASEAN region, and the world an even better place.

To know more about NOI.PH and be able to represent the country in various competitions, just navigate around this website. Feel free to message the Facebook page or send an email to [email protected].

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