The South African Computer Olympiad

The South African Computer Olympiad is an annual competition for high school learners focused on computer programming. It is administered by the South African Computer Olympiad Trust as a project of the Computer Society of South Africa. The aims of the Olympiad are to identify, encourage and reward programming aptitude, promote and encourage computer studies at school and university level and create an awareness of the potential careers using computer programming skills.

The South African Computer Olympiad is one of the oldest in the world and was started in 1984 by a group of local teachers. The competition consists of 3 rounds. The first round is a paper-based test administered at schools and can be taken without prior programming experience. The second round is a computer-based programming test conducted at schools. The top participants from across the country are then invited to participate in the third and final round, a weekend-long computer-based programming experience hosted by the University of Cape Town. Based on the results from the third round, 6 medals are awarded.

Four of the medal winners have the opportunity to participate in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) the following year. The IOI 2008 will be hosted by Egypt.

Although the Olympiad is aimed at high school learners, participation is welcomed from all school-level learners. There has even been a gold medal winner from grade 7.

The Shuttleworth Foundation has for the past 3 years been the sponsor of final round prizes to the value of R100 000 specifically for participants using the Python programming language. The other primary supporters of the South African Computer Olympiad are Standard Bank, the University of Cape Town and the South African Computer Society.