Students put RI on informatics map

Dewi Santoso, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Three Indonesian students have proved brainpower can take you a long way -- to Athens, and medals at the International Computer Science Olympics.

A silver from David Santoso Anggakusuma and two bronze medals from Derianto Kusuma and Andrian Kurniady have put Indonesia on the world map of computer science.

"I was delighted to win the silver medal," said David, who is now entering his freshman year at Bina Nusantara University's School of Computer Science. He was registered for the competition as a Tarakanita 2 senior high school in Jakarta.

Derianto is now a second-year student at Kolese Kanisius senior high school in Jakarta, while Andrian is a third-year student at Sang Timur senior high.

Both said they had an attack of nerves at the start of the competition, where they made their international debut.

"We had to resolve six problems in total, three on the first day and the rest the next day. We had only five hours each day to solve the problems," Derianto said.

Participants were given the freedom to choose the programming language they would like to solve the problems with; C, C++ or Pascal. The three preferred Pascal, citing their familiarity with it.

"We had to solve each problem using the shortest algorithm, and that was where the most difficult part was because sometimes we ran out of time," Derianto told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Andrian said the first day was the most difficult stage.

"The second day was OK because the problems were quite manageable," he said.

Derianto and Andrian collected 370 and 345 points respectively out of 600, while David scored 375.

The three underwent training for the competition at the University of Indonesia in Depok, West Java, the Bandung Institute of Technology and the Bogor Institute of Agriculture for six months before the competition.

While they arrived home without much of a fanfare, the three did receive awards from the Ministry of National Education.

They landed at Soekarno-Hatta Airport on the evening of Sept. 20, missing their right to vote by accident.

The 10th International Computer Science Olympics, which ran from Sept. 11 to Sept. 18, is the ninth event Indonesia has taken part in. The national team missed last year's Olympics in the United States after they were denied entry visas.

The event will move to Poland next year.