Irish Team Win Silver Medal at the
International Olympiad in Informatics

Martin Orr, the Methodist College, Belfast won a silver medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) at the University of Athens, Greece (11th - 18th September 2004). Martin will also be awarded the €1,500 IBM Scholarship for winning the IOI Silver Medal at an awarding ceremony later this year.

The Irish IOI 2004 Team was selected from the finalists at the IBM/DCU Computer Programming Olympiad held in DCU in December 2003. The team followed an online training programme designed and implemented by Charlie Daly, a lecturer in school of computing, and Ciarán O Conaire, a postgraduate student. The students also attended an intensive residential course in the School of Computing, DCU prior to their departure to the Athens.

Charlie Daly (2004 Team leader) has been the Irish IOI Team Leader since 1993 when Ireland first participated in the IOI in Argentina. He and Michael Cotter were the co-founders of the IBM/DCU All Ireland Schools Programming Competition in 1994. This was later incorporated into the IBM/DCU Irish Science Olympiad when Ireland began participating in the IChO, IBO and IPhO.

Ciarán O Conaire (2004 Deputy Team Leader) was a bronze medal winner at the 1999 IOI in Turkey. Later that year he became an undergraduate student in DCU and was awarded a first class honours B.Eng. (Telecommunications Engineering) degree in 2003. He is presently pursuing a PhD with Dr. Noel O Connor in the Centre for Digital Video Processing.

Martin Orr receiving the IOI Silver medal from Dimitris Bakogiannis daughter of IOI Chairman, with Charlie Daly and Ciarán O Conaire