Taiwan won one gold and three silver medals yesterday at the just-concluded 26th International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), which was held for the first time in Taiwan.
Taiwan’s performance this year marked an improvement from last year’s in Australia, when they garnered one gold and two bronze medals.
This year, the gold medal went to Chen Po-en (陳伯恩), a student at the National Experimental High School at the Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park. Chen was also a gold-medal winner at the 2012 International Mathematical Olympiad.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Chen, who suffers from leukemia, has recently completed a three-year course of chemotherapy.
Yesterday, he reacted casually to his latest accomplishment, saying: “I’m just glad I didn’t have to compete while having chemo. That was a relief.”
He said that winning is not the most important part about participating in an international contest, but the process of learning, discussing and immersing one’s self in the world of mathematics and informatics, adding that he cherished every moment of the experience.
A familiar face at math and informatics contests at home and abroad, Chen has won many honors, including a gold medal in Southeast Mathematical Olympiad 2010 and the 15th National Problem Solving Contest on Internet.
Chen’s mother, Huang Hsiu-chuan (黃秀娟), said that seeing her son get through the painful process of chemotherapy over the past three years was as rewarding as seeing him take first place at the IOI.
From his gradual recovery from the disease and the youthful smile returning to his face, she said she could tell Chen’s life is “moving toward a bright and beautiful future.”
The three silver medals went to Taichung First Senior-High School’s Chen Po-chang (陳柏彰), Kaohsiung Municipal Kaohsiung Senior-High School’s Wang Tzu-ming (王子明) and Taipei Municipal Jianguo High-School’s Cho Yi (周逸).
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS