Senior Jerry Yu is one of only four high school students selected to represent the United States for the 2026 International Artificial Intelligence Olympiad (IAIO). The achievement places him among some of the best young programmers in the emerging field.
“I’m really grateful for this opportunity,” Yu said. “I’m excited to represent the U.S.”
To qualify for the team, Yu needed to complete three rigorous rounds of technical competition involving programming, machine learning, and neural networks. The international competition will be on Feb. 23-27 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Yu’s journey to the world stage began when he was in fourth grade studying Python, a simple, text-based programming language. It was unlike his previous experiences with Scratch, a language that uses building blocks, often used to create rudimentary games.
“I was one of the fastest kids there, so it made me really, really like it,” Yu said. “It had more creativity [than Scratch], which made me feel proud.”
Yu said learning Python gave him the tools to solve problems in his life, going beyond academics. In middle school, he was frustrated with his disorganised collection of MP3 files. Instead of manually sorting the files and applying metadata, he wrote a script to scrape data from the internet and automatically organise the files.
Yu said he carried his creative, problem-solving approach to high school. With that came higher-stakes environments like hackathons, 24-hour team programming marathons that test endurance as much as skill. In April, he attended Los Altos IX, the world’s largest high school hackathon, where he competed against hundreds of teams.
“I unfortunately got like three hours of sleep,” Yu said. “But we did create something really cool. We created a real-time voice coach using AI.”
He said another project involved designing a Daft Punk-inspired Halloween costume with his friend, senior Petro Papahadjopoulos, complete with a robotic helmet and voice changer.
“Unfortunately, it broke down before the day of Halloween,” Yu said. “I had no knowledge in electrical engineering, so I had to do a lot of research myself, including searching up tutorials online.”
He said the project involved using an Arduino microcontroller, making building and programming more complicated.
Despite the breakdown, the process of learning and building remained a highlight for Yu. He said that part of the appeal of programming is learning and enjoying the process with friends.
Despite all his accolades, his friends had more to say about his personality. Papahadjopoulos didn’t even know that Yu had been selected for the IAIO, despite the two being friends for more than 9 years.
Papahadjopoulos recalled working with Yu at a nonprofit where they taught engineering to children. When conflicts arose between the kids, Yu was the one who could step in and de-escalate the situation.
“He is very good at diffusing those types of situations,” Papahadjopoulos said. “He’s very good at listening.”
That leadership is visible in Coding Club, where Yu has served as president for three years.
“He’s just very humble,” said Coding Club advisor and computer science teacher Jennifer Newell. “I don’t think anyone really knows because he doesn’t really boast about these things. He’s pretty down to earth, which makes him approachable.”
“He’s very good at talking with people, organising them, and solving disputes,” Papahadjopoulos said.
“He strikes me as a very honest person who cares about integrity,” Newell said. “In everyday life, he doesn’t need to tell everyone how great he is.”
Looking ahead to college, Yu said he plans to major in computer science. While he isn’t sure of his exact career path yet, he knows it will rely on the skills he has been honing.
“It gives me the ability to create these great products that can’t really be done in other fields,” Yu said.
