Beach at Red Sea

The students, leaders and guests enjoy their last day in Egypt relaxing at a beautiful beach at the Portrait Hotel on the Red Sea near ain Sokhna. This is about a two hour drive through the dessert east of Cairo.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Canadian Team After Closing Ceremonies

The Canadian Team and our terrific Egyptian guide gathers on stage after the closing ceremonies. A total of 141 students received a bronze, silver or gold medal out of 287 competitors.

The entire Canadian team did a fantastic job at a very challenging competition featuring the world's best computer science secondary students. Well done and congratulations for representing Canada so well.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Canada Wins Gold!

Hanson has won a prestigious gold medal in this year's IOI. This is a tremendous achievement. Well done Hanson!
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Another Bronze!

Robin wins Canada's second bronze medal. Good work!
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Bronze Medal to Canada

Aaron wins Canada's first medal-- a bronze. Congratulations Aaron!
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Egyptian Minister of Education Addresses Closing ceremonies

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Canadian Team at IOI 2008 Closing Ceremonies

The Canadian Team awaits the results and names of individual medal winners at tonight's awards ceremony and closing ceremony.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Salinas New President of IOI

Arturo Cepeda Salinas from Mexico was elected as the new President of IOI by delegates at the General Assembly meeting on August 21, 2008. He replaces China's Zide Du, who had been President since 2005.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Competitors in Cyber Cafe

Some of the competitors relax after dinner by hanging out in the always crowded Cyber Cafe. With the official competition now over the students can enjoy some much deserved fun for the last two days. Team leaders continue with meetings tomorrow.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

IOI Competitors at Lunch

In cafeteria after last day of competition. They can relax now after working so hard.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Canadian Team After 2nd Competition

The Canadian Team enjoys lunch today after finishing the second and last 5 hour competition. Scores for this competition will be available this afternoon but our team reported that this round was more challenging than the first.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Holy Family In Egypt

Church of the Holy Family where Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus fled to escape Roman persecution and death. The Holy family stayed here for about two months. About 10 per cent of Egypt's population is Coptic Christian today.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Abdullah sells at Citadel

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

The Citadel

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Robin Chen at Dinner

The competitors, leaders and guests all enjoyed a day at the Giza pyramids today. Canadian team member Robin Chen sits down for dinner after enjoying some down time after the very hot pyramid excursion.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Cyber Cafe Popular

The Cyber Cafe is a very popular place for the competitors, team leaders and guests. The 23 computers, which are connected to the internet, are almost always in use. As well there is a wireless network available in part of the residence for those with their own laptops.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Canadian IOI Team Prepares for Competition

Canadian team members practice on Sunday August 17 in preparation for the first day of competition on Monday August 18. The team competes as individuals with about 370 other competitors from 78 countries. Each competition (there are two) lasts 5 hours and the questions are quite tough. Speaking to several competitors from a number of teams today brought similar comments that the questions were quite difficult. With the travel, time change and lots of activities, it is not easy. The boys on our team have done a fantastic job just to get here. I will report on scores later as the competition final results are compiled from scores achieved over both competition days.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Sphinx and Pyramid

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Tour bus and Pyramid

About 13 large busses take us to various sites.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Sphinx

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Kufu or Cheopes pyramid

Biggest one
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Guide

Guide explains Pyramids to group
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Pyramid at Giza

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Entertainment on Nile Cruise

We were entertained by numerous traditional Egyptian entertainers such as these musicians and dancers.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

More Nile Cruise

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Troy Vasiga Enjoys Cruise

IOI IC member and UW cs lecturer Troy Vasiga enjoys Nile cruise
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Sun sets Over Nile

Our cruise begins as the sun sets over Cairo. Bon voyage!
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

On Nile Cruise

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Boarding Cruise Boat

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

going to Nile cruise

Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Arriving at Nile River

After an 80 monute drive we arrive at the Nile river to start our cruise.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

IMG00043.jpg

Main building in large complex that houses IOI 2008 in Mubarak City of Education just outside Cairo.
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Dessert Outside Mubarek

The dry dessert dominates the scenery just outside Mubarek City, which is
located just outside of Cairo.

Another View of Mubarek City

The various paths around the campus are beautifully laid out with lots of
greenery and flowers. Remarkable for the dessert. Extensive irrigation is
used to maintain this green oasis in the midst of the very dry dessert that
surrounds Mubarek City.

IMAX Theatre at Mubarak City

The state of the art IMAX theatre on campus looks remarkably like a UFO! A
film is presented every other day for delegates to enjoy.

Mosque on campus

Prayer chants can be heard numerous times a day coming from this mosque
which is an important part of the Mubarek City campus.

Mubarek City

Egyptian student helpers return to the main building on the Mubarek city
campus after escorting delegates and students to the Opening Ceremonies on
Monday

Lobby of Main Building of IOI

IOI 2008 Main Building

View of front of the main building at Mubarek City that is hosting IOI 2008

IMG00037.jpg

Canadian IOI 2008 Team members before Opening Ceremonoies
Mary Joy Aitken
mj2aitken@math.uwaterloo.ca

Canadian students compete in International Olympiad in Informatics in Egypt

WATERLOO, Ont. (Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008) -- While the summer Olympics athletes dazzle in Beijing, three University of Waterloo mathematics experts will coach a team of Canada's top high school computing stars in the prestigious International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) to be held next week in Cairo, Egypt.

The four-member student team, along with its UW coaches, leaves on Friday. The IOI competition runs between Aug. 16 and 23.

The names of the competitors on the Canadian IOI team are:
* Hanson Wang, of Toronto, Ontario
* Aaron Voelker, of Smittsville, Ontario
* Robin Cheng, of Coquitlam, British Columbia
* Tom Szymanski, of Windsor, Ontario

To earn the honour to represent Canada, the four students competed earlier this year in the Canadian Computing Competition, run annually by UW's Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing based in the faculty of mathematics.

"Our team is very well prepared and ready to give their best efforts in the competition," says Troy Vasiga, a UW computer science lecturer and director of the Canadian Computing Competition. "We are quite excited to be going to Egypt and our students will be touring parts of Egypt near Cairo including the pyramids and the Nile river."

The other two UW representatives leading the Canadian IOI team are Ian Munro, a computer science professor and Graeme Kemkes, a doctoral student in combinatorics and optimization.

As well, Mary Joy Aitken, senior development officer in the faculty of math, will accompany the team and run a blog, complete with photos and updates, throughout the competition. The blog is located at http://www.mjaitken.blogspot.com/

In 2010, UW will be the first Canadian university ever to host this competition. About 400 of the brightest young people aged 14 to 17 from nearly 100 countries will come to Waterloo to participate in the competition.

The annual week-long competition, which has been held since 1989, features 400 of the world's top computer science high school students, who are selected through national computing contests. About 250,000 young people compete in total each year to represent their country.

The IOI, which was first proposed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is the world's premier high school computer programming competition.

The goals of the IOI are to bring together, challenge, and give recognition to young students from around the world who are the most talented in informatics (computer programming), and to foster friendship among these students from diverse cultures. For further information, visit http://www.ioi2008.org/index.php