Computer Science

The competition, organised by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), aimed to give girls an insight into the world of cyber security as a potential career. Twenty-six Perse Year 8 girls took part in the preliminary round last term with the team of Shawnie, Lili, Haoning and Rachel earning a spot in the independent schools category of the national finals.

Under the team name ‘P3r53Two’, they went on to triumph in the online final after completing a series of challenges in cryptography, cyber security, networking and logic and coding, as well as an additional ‘puzzle book’, over a fivehour period.

The team received a laptop and goodie bag as well as an invitation to a celebration event hosted by NCSC.

Perse Head of Computer Science Dave Gwilt said: “Their achievement is impressive as they were competing against the best independent schools from across the UK and scored significantly more points than the second-placed team.

“They worked very quickly and independently, self-organising into topic specialities, but also showing super teamwork to help each other out when getting stuck.”

Twelve Perse students made it into the finals, which featured just the top 20 participants from the first round in each age category. Competitors had only an hour to answer 12 logic problems and code-writing tests.

Jem Bennett (Lower Sixth) cracked the code as he won the elite section for Sixth Form students, while Aidan Wong (Upper Sixth) came fourth. Daniel Weglowski (Year 9) was runner-up in the intermediate category, while Perse students made up almost half of the entries for the senior final – Sourish Sharma, Mabel Symes, Oliver Gibson, Abhinav Gupta, Siddharth Kambli, Dominic Rogers (all Year 11), Tom Hammond, Marcus Collins and Hanli Jin (all Year 10).

Notably, Sourish came second, while Tom and Marcus were fifth and ninth respectively.

Perse Head of Computer Science Dave Gwilt said: “Congratulations to all students for an incredible showing in a highly competitive field.”

time, so I was really pleased to be selected to represent the UK because it’s a very tough competition,” said Toby.

He featured in a four-strong team that took part in the competition in Indonesia after an impressive performance during a five-hour programming exam in the British Informatics Olympiad squad selection camp at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College.

The IOI took place in the Javanese city of Yogyakarta – the ancient capital and academic centre of the Indonesia.

Toby was among 350 students from all around the world who pitted their wits in trying to solve a series of extremely difficult programming challenges with intriguing titles, including Catfish Farm, Rarest Insects and Thousand Islands, across two exams. “The experience was amazing - tackling challenging programming problems, visiting beautiful cultural sites and making friends with students from around the world.

“The competition consisted of six tough computer programming tasks across two days. The problems were extremely difficult, including creating an optimal strategy for sharing specific information and determining the highest possible score in a complicated game.

“Aside from the competition, there were many cultural excursions and technology talks, including learning Indonesian music and dance, visiting the ancient Borobudur Buddhist temple and a talk from open source blockchain platform Tezos.

However, there was still plenty of time to explore the local area through a range of cultural excursions to sites such as Yogyakarta Royal Palace and the Indonesian Institute of Arts.

“I’ve entered the competition for a few years now, through the Programming Club at school, and I’ve progressed further each “The Informatics Olympiad was a brilliant opportunity to meet like-minded young people from all over the globe. I learned so much from the training and competition and the trip was spectacular.”