St Petersburg State U Wins IBM Programming Contest
A team of three students from Saint Petersburg State University in Russia won first place in the 40th annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC). Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and Harvard University took second and third place, respectively.
The ACM-ICPC is a global information technology competition for university students. The competition headquarters is located at Baylor University in Texas, and this year's World Finals were held at Prince of Songkla University in Phuket, Thailand. IBM sponsored the competition.
A
total of 128 teams, comprising three students each, competed in the
world finals. Teams were required to solve as many complex real-world
problems as possible within the five-hour time limit. The winning team
solved 11 problems to clinch the world championship.
The
ACM-ICPC kicked off with more than 300,000 students worldwide competing
in local competitions last year. Of those, 40,266 students from 2,736
universities in 102 countries advanced to the regional competitions in
Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America
and the South Pacific this past fall.
Participants in the world
finals had the opportunity to learn about the latest technologies from
IBM. The company held presentations and interactive, on-site
demonstrations of its cloud platform, Bluemix and IBM Watson technology.
Medalists in the ACM-ICPC World Finals include:
- St. Petersburg State University in Russia, first place gold medalists and 2016 World Champions;
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, second place gold medalists;
- Harvard University in USA, third place gold medalists;
- Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in Russia, fourth place gold medalists;
- University of Warsaw in Poland, fifth place silver medalists;
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology in USA, sixth place silver medalists;
- St. Petersburg ITMO University in Russia, seventh place silver medalists;
- Ural Federal University in Russia, eighth place silver medalists;
- University of Wroclaw in Poland, ninth place bronze medalists;
- Nizhny Novgorod State University in Russia, tenth place bronze medalists;
- Lviv National University in Ukraine, eleventh place bronze medalists; and
- Fudan University in China, twelfth place bronze medalists.
Further information about the ACM-ICPC can be found on Baylor University's site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].