First Irish World Gold Medal in Computing
27 August 2003

Ciarán O Conaire and Charlie Daly (DCU) with IOI Gold Medal Winner Martin Orr

Martin Orr, won Ireland's first IOI Gold Medal at the 2003 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) at the University of Wisconsin, USA on August 16th -23rd 2003.

The Irish IOI 2003 Team: - Martin Orr, Methodist College Belfast; Daniel Kersten, Kilkenny College: Robert Cunningham, NWIFHE, Co. Derry and Kenneth Barrett, St Brendan's College, Co. Mayo were selected from the finalists at the IBM/DCU Computer Programming Olympiad (http://www.dcu.ie/~ispc/) held in DCU in December 2002. They followed an online training programme designed and implemented by the Irish Team Leaders Charlie Daly & Ciarán O Conaire. They also attended an intensive residential course in the School of Computing, DCU prior to their departure to the USA.

Martin will also be awarded the €2,500 IBM Scholarship for winning the IOI Gold Medal at an awarding ceremony in September. This is the first time that this scholarship will be awarded at this level as up until now no Irish student has won a Gold Medal at the International Science Olympiads.

Charlie Daly (http://www.computing.dcu.ie/people/cdaly.shtml) has been the Irish IOI Team Leader since 1993 when Ireland first participated in the IOI in Argentina. He and Michael A. 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. Computer Programming students have previously won silver and bronze IOI medals.

Ciarán O Conaire (2003 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 (www.cdvp.dcu.ie).