Student Earns Gold at Computing Olympiad

Mars Xiang ’23 recently earned a gold medal at the Canadian Computing Olympiad, an invitation-only competition that took place at the University of Waterloo from May 29 to June 2, where he went toe-to-toe with nearly sixty students from across Canada. The victory earns him one of four spots representing Canada at the 2023 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), taking place in Szeged, Hungary at the end of August. The IOI is considered one of the most prestigious competitive programming events in the world.

Xiang attributes much of his success to the influence of Timothy Wang ’21 and Upper School mathematics teacher Samantha Pena. “Timothy graduated two years ago. He introduced me to competitive programming when I was in Grade 9, and I've been practicing since then,” he says. Ms. Pena was Mars’ Mentor and offered guidance when he expressed interest in competing. “I was Mars' accountability person,” she says. “I couldn't be more proud of him. This journey has been two years in the making. It has been an absolute pleasure to witness his unwavering dedication and hard work.”