The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad (OzCLO) is a linguistics competition aimed at high school students from years 9 to 12. The state rounds will be held at University of Sydney, and University of Melbourne on the afternoon of June 25th 2008, with the national round to be held (in each location) on August 6th 2008. OzCLO will consist of teams of up to three students.
Target student population:
The program is designed for students from years 9 to 12. Any secondary school student who enjoys the sample problems on the web site is a potential contestant. High School students don't typically know what linguistics and computational linguistics are, so they probably won't know if they are interested until they try the problems. However, students who like languages, maths, computers, and the natural sciences are most likely to be interested in this competition.
Information sessions:
Information sessions for students and teachers who are interested in the competition will be held at each location. At these sessions we will explain the details of the competition, introduce the fields of linguistics, computational linguistics, and language technology, and give tips for solving sample problems.
Sydney: Wednesday 11th June 4:00 – 6:00pm at University of Sydney
Contact Elwin Cross (elwin AT ozclo.org.au)
Melbourne: Wednesday 4th June 4:00 – 6:00pm at University of Melbourne
Contact Saya Ike (saya AT ozclo.org.au)
Competition Format:
The State round on June 25th 2008 will be a two and a half hour session, and the successful competitors will go to the National Round, which will also be held in Sydney and Melbourne on August 6th 2008.
Although this is a team competition format, individual students are also encouraged to join. They will not be disadvantaged in any way.
Registration:
Registration in the competition is free. The registration form can be downloaded from the website ( HYPERLINK "" www.ozclo.org.au). The participating students will be contacted through a nominated teacher to protect their privacy.
The competition is being sponsored by HCSNet, the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, Macquarie University, the Australasian Language Technology Association, and the Australian Linguistics Society.