Three bronze medals for Australia at Informatics Olympiad

Three students have won bronze medals representing Australia at the twelfth International Olympiad for Informatics, held in Beijing during September. This ultimate test of computer science and programming is held each year for students at the secondary school level. Students are required to write computer programs to solve new problems.

In the picture, from left, are Peter Hawkins, David Greenaway, Min-Zhao Lee and David Liu after the medal-awarding ceremony.

Detailed scores were:

	NAME	YR	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	TOT
	David Greenaway Mosman High School NSW	10	10	0	40	47	100	0	197
	Peter Hawkins Canberra Grammar School ACT	12	40	80	30	53	50	0	253
	Min-Zhao Lee James Ruse Agricultural High School NSW	11	0	0	10	29	100	10	149
	David Liu Anglican Church Grammar School Qld	12	0	20	10	0	50	0	80

Peter Hawkins, of Canberra, who also won a Bronze Medal at the 1999 event, scored the highest score for the team and has now earned two Bronze Medals. David Greenaway and Min-Zhao Lee, both of Sydney, won Bronze Medals also. The performance of David Liu, of Brisbane, was also commendable.

The team was led by Dr Robbie Gates, of Macquarie University. Deputy Leader was Mr Ben Burton, of the University of Melbourne, while the team was managed by Sandra Brownscombe, of Melbourne.

Professor Peter Taylor, Executive Director of the Australian Mathematics Trust, which administers Australia's participation in this event, said that these results should be regarded as particularly outstanding given the highly competitive nature of the event, the additional years which other countries have had to prepare training programs, and that at moment our team depends on a single training camp of 10 days to prepare.

"We are preparing, with the help of the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, and Sun Microsystems, a formal training program which will give all secondary students in Australia a full course on the skills needed to solve these demanding problems, giving them a higher base from which to begin the training at selection schools", he said.