APO 2016 Results & IPO Ghent

The cover of the student & faculty schedule.

Contrary to what you might expect, French, German, and Spanish are the official languages of the American Philosophy Olympiad (APO). This is because the International Philosophy Olympiad (IPO) requires essayists to write in a language other than their own national one. In the USA, our de facto national language is English. The judges of this essay contest are teachers and professors of language and philosophy. For the 2016 APO contest we received essays in all three APO official languages. French essays have been among the winners in years past and although German essays have been received they have not yet been among the winning essays. In 2016 the judges chose two essays from among the Spanish essays to represent the USA in Belgium at the IPO.

The winners of the APO 2016 were Caroline Norfleet and Anna Stoneman. Caroline is from the Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, NY (see what OFS write about her on their website: http://www.oakwoodfriends.org/news/242-ofs-senior-to-compete-in-international-philosophy-olympiad). Anna is from the Stanford Online High School in California (https://ohs.stanford.edu/), but Anna lives in Wisconsin. Their prize was to represent the USA in Ghent, Belgium and to spend 4 days with more than 90 students their own age who study philosophy in 44 countries around the world.

Here is a film I have just received (June 2017) reflecting on the IPO2016 in Ghent, Belgium. Enjoy it: http://www.ipo2016.be/film/

For the results of the IPO 2016, you may go to the IPO website, click on the following link or type it in on your browser: http://www.philosophy-olympiad.org/. At this site you will also find information about IPO 2017, the 25th IPO, which will be held in the city of Rotterdam, the Netherlands at the end of May 2017.