Federico Lorenzi, who is still just 16, has already made his mark in the international computing arena, reports IOLTechnology. The Grade 11 Sacs pupil, who has a flair for developing computer programs, has won a top spot in the Google International Computer Programming competition.

Entrants had to choose one out of 10 faulty programs to work on.

“You had to choose what program you wanted to work on. I chose Moin Moin. It’s a developed program but had problems. I had to fix all the problems,” he said. Moin Moin is an open source Wiki application.

The problems were set out in the form of tasks, which required entrants to spend at least 10 days working on each task. Lorenzi said the task was “not easy”.

“The biggest challenge is to learn how the program works before you can develop things for it. I had to spend a lot of time reading up on the program before I could start fixing problems,” he said.

Lorenzi said his efforts were worth it as he, along with the nine other winners, will travel to the United States in July and spend four days at the Google Head Office in California.