Two in a row for programming champ

CLONSILLA student Áron Hoffmann has been crowned senior champion at the All-Ireland Programming Olympiad (AIPO) for the second year in a row.

Áron from Luttrellstown Community College is now included in an elite shortlist of eight top senior students who have been invited to an intense three day training camp hosted by DCU in June.

The camp will determine which four students will go on to represent Ireland at this year’s International Olympiad in Informatics, which takes place in the beautiful city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, this July.

The AIPO features Ireland’s youngest and most talented computer programmers who gathered at DCU to pit their skills against each other, and some of the country’s brightest, young problem-solvers and computational thinkers took part this year.

Students from 15 different counties around Ireland packed out one of DCU’s computer labs to compete over an intense five-hour computer programming challenge.

During this year’s AIPO both junior (under 15) and senior (15-18) participants were given four problems to decipher and translate into working code before they would score any points on the live scoreboard.

Anxious parents and siblings watched the large screen scoreboard in the foyer of the School of Computing at DCU to see how participants fared against their peers.

Past AIPO contestants, who are now students on the Computational Problem Solving and software Development (CPSSD) programme in DCU, assisted on the day.

Competitor Conor Griffin, said:

“It’s a lot more intimidating than the preliminary round when you have the comfort of your bedroom and six weeks to complete the problems. But the experience really stands to you for the finals the following year.

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Gary Conway, who manages the AIPO, added:

“These are the sort of skills the ICT sector are in need of – quick thinking, problem-solving software engineers that can work under pressure.

“To see these skills in such young students is really amazing and encouraging for Ireland’s future. Our youngest competitor, first timer Yulia Soldatkina, came close to a medal position and she is only 13!

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This is the fourth year Fidelity Investments has sponsored the event and with their continued support participation has grown by double digit figures year on year.

“We continue to see increased interest in this great event,

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“We take great pride in encouraging young students to develop their technical skills and consider IT as a career.

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