USQ lecturer leads high school team to international honour

USQ Lecturer Michael de Raadt has helped a team of Australian high school students claim first place at the 2008 International Schools Software Competition (ISSC) in India.

The Mathematics and Computer Studies lecturer led the Australian team, consisting of the country's finest high school computer programmers, to the title for the first time since the competition began in 1989.

'The ISSC is run in conjunction with the South East Asian Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC) and has Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand as member countries,' Michael said.

'I was asked by the Australian Computer Society (ACS) to coach the team, which consisted of three students; Jarrah Lacko and Kenneth Wong from James Ruse Agricultural High School Sydney and Daniel Berger from Moriah College also in Sydney.

'Before this year in the 20 odd year history of the ISSC Australia had never won.'

Michael was asked to coach the team following the continued success of the Australian Computer Programming Competition (ACPC), which is hosted annually by USQ.

'For the past 25 years here at USQ we have run a national programming competition, the ACPC, which allows high school students to compete online from their own schools.

'I run this competition with Dave Roberts (USQ Information Systems) and the ACS asked us as organisers of the ACPC to select a team to compete in the ISSC from the ACPC entrants.'

Although the number of teams entered into the ISSC was down on previous years, the competition was still tough and thoroughly tested each student.

'The competition asked the participants to write computer programs to solve specific programming problems as quickly as possible,' Michael said.

'Only three countries sent teams this year but each team was strong.  For example 4000 Indians sat their national competition for selection.'

As well as claiming the title, the Australian team were also awarded trophies and money prizes worth US$1000.

'The boys who took part did their country proud and will undoubtedly have bright computing careers ahead of them.'

Media Contact: Josh Ada, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 2559