Four Secondary School Students to represent Ireland at International Linguistics Olympiad

Four students will represent Ireland at the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL), taking place remotely this week, from Dublin City University (DCU). The Irish team is made up of the top four students from the 2021 All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad (AILO) which is run by ADAPT, the SFI Research Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology, at the School of Computing, DCU.

Justin Cunningham from Patrician Secondary School, Newbridge, Co. Kildare, clinched top spot in the National Final. Justin also made the team last year when the internationals were unfortunately cancelled, and is a previous Junior Champion. Joining him on the IOL team are Oscar Despard (Sandford Park School, Ranelagh, Dublin), Natalia Timulakova (Holy Faith Clontarf, Dublin) and David Wright (Lucan Community College, Dublin).

The students have taken part in online training with Prof Harold Somers and Dr Cara Greene of ADAPT in the School of Computing. The International Olympiad will see the students come up against approximately 200 top linguistic problem-solvers, from 30 countries, to tackle some of the toughest puzzles in logic and linguistics in little-known languages from all over the globe. The students will face a 6-hour individual round paper on Tuesday and a 4-hour team round on Wednesday. Results will be announced on Saturday.