Silver lining

First-year student Keegan Carruthers-Smith (above) has won a silver medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in Mexico, one of three bagged by the South African team. Teammates Ralf Kistner and Joshua Yudaken also picked up silver medals, while Max Rabkin, another UCT student, narrowly missed out on one. The IOI is an annual competition for young computer programmers. The South African team, under team leader Donald Cook of UCT's Department of Computer Science, competed against squads from 71 other nations. According to Peter Waker, vice-president of education and training at the Computer Society of South Africa, it's South Africa's best results since 2001. "It is amazing that a small player like South Africa can do so well in a competition with the rest of the world."