Daniel Abdullah Zain is hoping to pack his bags and swap Haileybury for Hungary later this year.
The 16-year-old recently became one of Australia’s youngest and most promising programmers at the Australian Invitational Informatics Olympiad (AIIO).
Daniel reached the top 16 in the event which is designed to identify and support the country’s brightest and brainiest young programmers.
The Year 11 Haileybury student is now in training for selection to represent Australia at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in Hungary in August.
The event brings together high school students from across the globe who showcase and sharpen their informatics skills in problem analysis, the design of algorithms and data structures, programming and testing.
“I’m pretty happy about achieving the milestone of being in the top 16 in Australia but I’m definitely hoping to break into the top 4 and go to Hungary,” says Daniel.
“I’ve invested as much time and practice as I can to work towards that.”
The IOI is one of several international science Olympiads held each year around the world. It discovers young people like Daniel who are exceptionally talented in the field of informatics, which encompasses computer programming and algorithm design.
Daniel has competed in a series of informatics competitions in Australia to be in contention for Hungary and he has spent hours getting to grips with every aspect of this specific field of science – from Dijkstra’s algorithm to dynamic programming.
“I do get nervous during the contests but as each event goes for a few hours I make time to take a few minutes, relax and gain focus,” says Daniel.
Tue Nguyen, Head of Computer Science at Haileybury, says Daniel’s achievements so far are impressive with the exams at the Olympiad events being extremely complex.
“The difficulty level of the problems would challenge even proficient Computer Science students at university level and require advanced skills and knowledge of algorithms and data structures,” says Mr Nguyen.
Mr Nguyen also taught Year 10 Haileybury student, Henry Ho, 15, who narrowly missed out on a spot in the top 16 this year but who has been identified as a promising future candidate.
“To be successful, students like Daniel and Henry must be creative thinkers who can think outside the box,” he explains.
“At the same time, they need to be seasoned programmers who are familiar with well-known problem-solving strategies and with efficient algorithms and data structures that are usually not taught at high school level.
“Successful competitors are also highly motivated and resilient because they must maintain concentration for long periods of time and cope with the stress and frustration of the challenging cognitive tasks that confront them.”
With his eyes on Hungary, Daniel is now spending every spare hour taking part in specialist training that is honing his computer programming and algorithmic skillset. He also plans to continue studying informatics and carving out a career in the in-demand and highly specialised field. “After I graduate, I plan on pursuing a career in computer science although I haven’t decided exactly what I’ll do as computer science is a massive field. I’m keeping my options open for the time being,” he says.
