Vahe Musoyan of Yerevan won two gold medals at this year's Informatics Olympiad held in Poland on August 18-25. In 2004, at 15, Vahe was the youngest participant at the Pan-Armenian Programming Contest. He captured 5 th place in the individual competition, and 2 nd place in the team competition. In addition, he actually developed the grading and testing software that was used during the competition. This year, Vahe managed to take 1 st place among the 200 participants in both the individual and team competitions. The other participants, who had befriended Vahe in previous contests, said jokingly that he would be able to solve all of the problems in just five minutes.

When we approached Vahe for an interview, he seemed a bit nervous; he confessed that he had never been interviewed before. Asked if the countless contests and Olympiads tire him out, the young man said that he usually gets tired during the final phase of the competitions, just before they end. He then added that the Olympics are not merely an end in themselves, and he hopes that his accomplishments will serve him well in the future.

Vahe has been participating in programming contests, including informatics and mathematics Olympiads, since the age of 14. This year he competed in Armenia's open programming contest just one day after returning from the 17 th International Mathematics Olympiad in Mexico.

In his first Olympiad - the 15 th International Informatics Olympiad in the US, in 2003 - Vahe received a certificate and a bronze medal. That year, he also participated in the Mathematics International Olympiad in Japan, where he learned more about the rigors of competition and realized that he needed further study to succeed in the future. The following year, he won bronze at the 16 th International Informatics Olympiad in Greece.

Participating in the Olympiads has given Vahe the opportunity to travel to a number of different countries. He notes that the breaks during competitions are his favorite part, since that is when the participants get the opportunity to find out more about the history, culture, and people in the host country. Vahe's impressions of the countries he has visited have varied widely. "The Japanese are very friendly and nice. Once we lost the keys to our hotel room, and they immediately gave us new ones without any problems. The Greeks would start a fight over even the smallest things. Mexicans-I don't know why-look like Armenians."

Vahe was born in 1989 in Metsamor, and later moved to Yerevan with his family. His parents are both programmers. His sister is currently in the US studying computer science, and his brother, a physicist, lives and works in France. "Our conversations at home were often about computers and new technology, and that's why I've had the opportunity to use computers since I was young," Vahe said.

The 16-year-old prodigy began studying programming at the Quant School in 7 th grade. "I started developing an interest in programming after taking programming courses at Quant. Studying there really helped me, because before that - in middle school - I didn't understand informatics very well."

In September, Vahe will continue his studies in the Applied Mathematics and Informatics Department at Yerevan State University. Because of his participation in international Olympiads, he could have entered any state university in Armenia without having to take entrance exams. The only real problem Vahe finds with pursuing his studies in Armenia is the lack of available material. "It's a little bit difficult to use specialized books here in Armenia, because there are very few of them available. When I try to order books over the Internet, they usually reject the orders when I get to the section for my location, saying that they won't ship to Armenia."

Vahe dreams of finding an interesting job after he finishes his studies. "I have yet to earn a salary. I have received monetary prizes from some of the contests I've participated in. Also, there are Internet sites where you can earn money for writing software or doing other people's work for them. Once I earned $40 for doing this, but I haven't withdrawn it from my bank account yet. I'd rather not spend my time on such small things; I'd prefer to keep increasing my knowledge so that later I can do more serious work," he says.

Because of his demanding schedule, the university student almost never has any free time. During Olympiads he has to study for ten hours a day, mainly by himself, solving problems posted on Internet sites. The rest of the time Vahe spends with his friends; they all compete in physics and astronomy olympiads.

It doesn't leave much time for bike-riding.