The University of Alberta has emerged as the top Canadian team
at the 30th Annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) world finals
held Wednesday in San Antonio, Tex.
The Edmonton-based team placed 11th among 83 teams worldwide. It
was one of five Canadian university teams participating. The team
also placed second team in North America, behind Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT).
The ACM-ICPC competition involves student teams of three who
have five hours to answer ten questions - equivalent to a
semesterb s worth of computer programming problems - in front of a
live audience and using programming languages like C++ and
Java.
According to contest officials, C++ was the most popular
language used, with 167 solutions submitted using that programming
language.
Saratov State University in Russia was crowned world champion as
it solved the most problems correctly in the fastest time.
Jagiellonian University, Poland came in second, while Altai State
Technical University, also from Russia came in third. All answered
six questions correctly and received gold medals. Saratov did it
the fastest and also won US$10,060 for its efforts.
"This was one of the closest world finals ever," said Bill
Poucher, executive director, ACM-ICPC.
About a third of the 83 teams solved five problems with half of
them working out the first one in 30 minutes. MIT took only 10
minutes to crack the first problem.
The team from Alberta solved four problems.
"The four we solved, we did them really well and very quickly,"
said Zachary Friggstad, who is in his first year of his masters of
computer science at the University of Alberta. Along with 11th
place, the Alberta team also earned a bronze and US$1050 in prize
money.
At last yearb s event in Shanghai, Alberta also solved four
problems but that was only good enough for 29th place. Before this
yearb s competition, the team didnb t want to predict their
placing.
"We donb t like to think about it, we try as hard as we can and
if did that then we are happy," said Andrew Neitsch, two days
before the competition. Neitsch recently graduated with an honours
math degree from the University of Alberta.
Canada also placed another team amongst the top 12 in the world.
The University of Waterloo finished 12th, also answering four
questions right. Last year, the team was fourth. It had won the
competition in 1994 and 1999.
IBM Corp., who has been sponsoring the ACM-ICPC world finals
since 1997, often uses the event to recruit new developer
talent.
"We believe it is important to focus the spotlight on academic
problem solving and careers in technology. Itb s that creativity and
potential that is so essential to the future of our company, the
industry and the economy," said Doug Heintzman, IBM sponsorship
executive for the ACM-ICPC.
IBM also announced during this yearb s world finals that it would
be extending its sponsorship through to 2012. The current
sponsorship contract was to expire next year. Heintzman said by
extending its sponsorship, IBM hopes to create awareness of the
ACM-ICPC competition into the high school space around the
globe.
"You have to intercept these students at a pretty young age and
get them interested and dreaming about [programming contests] and
get them hungry to become problem solvers at a pretty young age,"
he said.
Also held was the ICPC Java Challenge, an event that usually
takes place the day before the world finals. It gives participants
a chance to have some fun while programming a computer game that
would compete against other teams. Simon Fraser University (SFU) in
Burnaby, BC finished seventh in the Java Challenge and was the top
team in North America.
SFU tied for 19th in the world finals along with the University
of Toronto. The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, the
fifth Canadian team in the competition, tied for 13th.
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