A CLARE girl reached the concluding stage of a nationwide search to find Ireland’s top young problem solvers, which took place in Trinity College, Dublin this week.
Tara Comber from St Joseph’s, Spanish Point was among the 100 secondary school pupils who successfully made it through to the national final of the CNGL Centre for Global Intelligent Content’s All Ireland Linguistics Olympiad (AILO).
From a starting line-up of 2,600 students across 23 counties, the 100 top sleuths battled it out during an individual and team round, each lasting two hours.
The top four decoders from the individual round will be selected to represent Ireland at the International Linguistics Olympiad, which will be held in Beijing, in July. There, Team Ireland members will test their wits against students from over 30countries during a week packed with puzzles and cultural experiences.
The Olympiad, run by the Science Foundation Ireland-funded CNGL Centre for Global Intelligent Content, challenges students to apply logic and reasoning skills to solve complex language puzzles in unfamiliar languages. This ‘code-breaking’ event aims to inspire the next generation of multilingual technology graduates, who possess a powerful blend of language competency and problem-solving expertise.
Ireland is currently experiencing significant demand for multilingual technology graduates across diverse industries, including the multi-billion euro digital content sector.
Professor in Computer Science at Trinity, and director of AILO organisers, CNGL, Vincent Wade, said, “TheLinguistics Olympiad hones students’ problem solving, lateral thinking and language skills – all key requirements in today’s global business world. By combining computational thinking and linguistics in a fun way, the contest is inspiring students to pursue third level studies at the intersection of computing, linguistics and language.”
In preparation for the final, competitors received tuition from experts at CNGL, a €61 million academia-industry research centre that adapts and personalises digital content, products and services to the needs of global customers.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.