Australian students had their best ever result at the 2007 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). For the first time all four team members have won medals at the event held this year in Croatia from 15 to 22 August.

For the second consecutive year 15 year old Melbourne boy Christopher Chen has won a Gold Medal, placing him among the world's best 25 secondary student computer programmers, while 2006 teammate Jack Murray, also from Melbourne, has won a Silver Medal.

Both of the other team members, Angus McInnes, also of Melbourne and Alex Mathews, of Perth, took out Bronze Medals.

The Team Leader is Dr Ben Burton,of Melbourne, who has trained the team and developed the training program from its inception in 1998, and Deputy Leader is Bernard Blackham, of the University of Western Australia.

Australian Ambassador to Croatia, Tracy Reid OAM, attended the Closing Ceremony, held in Zagreb on 21 August and was able to congratulate them.

Detailed scores of the Australian team were:

		NAME	YR	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	TOT
		CHEN Christopher Carey Baptist Grammar School VIC	12	100	100	32	100	56	0	388
		MATHEWS Alex Como Secondary College WA	12	20	0	40	100	30	0	190
		McINNES Angus De la Salle College Malvern VIC	12	100	24	0	100	38	0	262
		MURRAY Jack De la Salle College Malvern VIC	11	100	100	0	100	50	0	350
		TOTALS		320	224	72	400	174	0	1190

Photographed immediately after the Closing Ceremony are, from left Alex Mathews, Christopher Chen, Ambassador Reid, Jack Murray, and Angus McInnes.

Again, after the ceremony, from left Bernard Blackham (Deputy Leader), Angus McInnes, Christopher Chen, Ambassador Tracy Reid, Jack Murray, Alex Mathews and Team Leader Dr Ben Burton.

The program is held under the auspices of the Australian Mathematics Trust, whose Executive Director, Professor Peter Taylor, is also with the team as manager. He said that this result now proves without doubt that Australia can produce computer programmers as good as anywhere in the world.

"Students are taught very little in Australian schools on programming computers, in other words using computers to perform prescribed tasks which they have not previously been developed for. Given the opportunity for these students to learn under the tutelage of people of the calibre of Ben Burton and other former IOI participants, these students are proving they are capable of programming computers to solve very challenging problems indeed", he said.

Professor Taylor also noted the support provided by the Australian Government through its Department of Education, Science and Training. The program is also sponsored by National ICT Australia (NICTA) and receives support from the Australian Computer Society.

Professor Taylor noted that in the IOI there are no country rankings, and the scores are not published in a way which makes such rankings possible, but a count of medals would indicate a very high placing.

Some of the highlights included the top score by a Polish student and a Gold Medal by a 13 year old Belarus student. Whereas there are very few girls in the various national teams the top result for Iran was a Gold Medal by a female student.

The following is an unofficial medal table and total based on 3 for Gold, 2 for Silver, 1 for Bronze:

	        GOLD   SILVER   BRONZE	
China              4                    12
Russia             3        1           11
Iran               1        3            9
Kazakhstan         2        1        1   9
Taiwan             2        1        1   9
Thailand           1        3            9
USA                2        1        1   9
Belarus            1        2        1   8
Bulgaria           2        1            8
Israel                      4            8
Poland             2                 2   8
Romania                     4            8
Australia          1        1        2   7
Croatia            1        1        2   7
Czech Rep                   3        1   7
Ukraine            1        1        2   7
Italy                       2        2   6
Japan              1        1        1   6
Korea                       2        2   6
Lithuania                   2        1   5
Slovakia                    2        1   5
Vietnam                     1        3   5
Brazil                      1        2   4
Hong Kong                   1        2   4
Hungary                     1        2   4
India                       1        2   4
Indonesia                            4   4
Singapore                   1        2   4
Armenia                     1        1   3
France                               3   3
Georgia                              3   3
Germany            1                     3
Sweden                      1        1   3
Switzerland                 1        1   3
Turkey                      1        1   3
Argentina                   1            2
Canada                               2   2
Finland                              2   2
Great Britain                        2   2
Greece                               2   2
Moldova                              2   2
Serbia                               2   2
South Africa                         2   2
Sri Lanka                   1            2
Denmark                              1   1
Estonia                              1   1
Ireland                              1   1
Luxembourg                           1   1
Macau                                1   1
Mexico                               1   1
Netherlands                          1   1
Slovenia                             1   1
				
TOTAL             25       48       69	

Earlier ...

Australian Team at Opening Ceremony for 2007 IOI

The Australian team has arrived in Zagreb to participate in the 2007 IOI. They are pictured below at the Opening Ceremony held on Thursday 16 August.

From left Bernard Blackham (Deputy Leader), Christopher Chen, Alex Mathews, Angus McInnes, Jack Murray and Ben Burton (Team Leader).