NACLO 2009 @ the University of Washington

The North American
Computational Linguistics Olympiad

Do you enjoy solving puzzles? Are you interested in languages? Are you a high school student (8th-12th grade) in the Seattle or Puget Sound area?

The North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO 2009) is an international contest in which high school students solve linguistic puzzles. Students learn about the diversity and consistency of language, while using logic skills to solve the problems. No prior knowledge of linguistics or other languages is necessary.

Professionals in linguistics, computational linguistics, and language technologies use dozens of the world's languages to create engaging problems for the Olympiad. The competition attracts top students, many of whom choose later on to study and work in the field. This is a fantastic opportunity for young people to experience a taste of natural language processing in the 21st century.

Interested?

• Try out some practice problems (here and here)
• Read about linguistics and computational linguistics
• Explore the world's languages on the web
• Register and participate in the NACLO 2009 Open Round competition!

Dates

• Registration: We request that students register by January 20, 2009; however, the official deadline for registration is Feb. 3, 2009.
• Open Round: The Open Round of the competition is on February 4, 2009, 9am-12pm. It will be held in room HUB 108 in the Husky Union Building on the University of Washington campus, Seattle, WA 98195.
• Invitational Round: The Invitational Round of the competition will take place on March 11, 2009. Top performers from the Open Round will be invited to participate.
• International Competition: Winners of the Invitational Competition will be eligible to represent North America at the International Linguistic Olympiad in Poland. The summer date is to be determined.

  Local Arrangements

  In the Seattle and Puget Sound area, NACLO is organized by the Department of Linguistics at the University of Washington. We anticipate that all local events will take place in the Husky Union Building on the University of Washington campus, Seattle, WA, 98195. The local organizer is Jim Hoard. You can contact him by email at jim_hoard@hotmail.com.

  NACLO 2009 is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Cambridge University Press, Google, and the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics.