Petersburg State University Wins
IBM-Sponsored International Collegiate Programming
Contest
The World’s Brightest Computing Students Met in
Phuket to Compete in the “Battle of the Brains”
emerged as World Champions of the 40th Annual ACM International
Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals sponsored by IBM (NYSE: IBM). The contest,
hosted at Prince of Songkla University in Phuket, brought together over 1400 of
the next generation of developers from 40 countries, where they competed on the
most elite level of programming, as well as interacted and built with IBM’s
advanced set of developer tools and APIs on IBM Cloud.
Headquartered at Baylor University and
known as the “Battle of the Brains,” the world’s oldest and most prestigious programming competition
challenged 128 university teams, each comprised of three students, to solve a
series of complex real-world problems in just five hours. Demonstrating the
elite talent of its team members, St.
Petersburg State University successfully solved 11
problems to earn the victory.
“IBM values this opportunity to assemble the brightest
students from the world’s leading universities and share with them the
technology trends that will shape the future, such as tools that allow them to
build new innovations fueled by cloud, cognitive, unstructured data and more,”
said Gerald Lane, ACM-ICPC Sponsorship Executive and Director, IBM Open
Technologies & IP. “These students are the future leaders of our industry
and we are committed to fostering their development with these critical
technologies as they prepare to enter the global workforce.”
IBM is continuing to build the world’s fastest, most
accessible on-ramp to cloud for developers, the global population of which is
expected to reach 25 million by 2020 (Evans Data). By sponsoring the ACM ICPC
World Finals, IBM enabled contestants to learn about the most advanced cloud
toolbox available. IBM has been rapidly expanding breakthrough technologies
easily accessed by developers through its cloud, including quantum computing,
blockchain and cognitive. This ready foundation of transformative tools equips
programmers, designers and coders with the potential to build revolutionary
apps across a multitude of industries.
“The ACM-ICPC’s impact on these students’ productivity
and opportunity lasts a lifetime,” said Dr. Bill Poucher, ICPC Executive
Director and Baylor University Professor. “I am excited to see what these
students will do with the dauntless problem solving abilities they showcased at
World Finals, as well as they knowledge they gained, as they continue their
academic and professional pursuits.”
Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, Harvard University
and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology finished the competition in
second, third, and fourth places, all earning coveted gold medals. The regional
champions are:
- Cairo University – Faculty of Computers and
Information (Africa and the Middle East) - Shanghai Jiao Tong University
(Asia) - St. Petersburg State University (Europe)
- Universidad Nacional de
Rosario (Latin America) - Harvard University (North
America) - University of New South Wales (South Pacific)
- St. Petersburg State University
(GOLD, 2016 WORLD CHAMPION) - Shanghai Jiao Tong University (GOLD, 2nd
Place) - Harvard University (GOLD, 3rd
Place) - Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (GOLD, 4th Place)
- University of Warsaw (SILVER, 5th
Place) - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SILVER, 6th Place)
- St. Petersburg ITMO University
(SILVER, 7th Place) - Ural Federal
University (SILVER, 8th Place) - University of Wroclaw (BRONZE, 9th
Place) - Nizhny Novgorod State University
(BRONZE, 10th
Place) - Lviv National University
(BRONZE, 11th
Place) - Fudan University (BRONZE, 12th
Place)
The 128 World Finalists emerged from local and regional ICPC competitions this past fall.
Initially, selection took place from a field of more than 300,000 students in
computing disciplines worldwide. A record number of students advanced to the
regional level, as 40,266 contestants from 2,736 universities in 102 countries
on six continents competed at more than 480 sites, all with the goal of earning
one of the coveted invitations to Phuket.
In addition to competing in the World Finals,
students were exposed to the latest technologies from IBM through speakers and
interactive, on-site demos of IBM’s Cloud Platform, Bluemix, and IBM Watson. The combination of Bluemix and Watson, delivered through the IBM Cloud
with extensive API support, allows developers to rapidly build cognitive apps
which can run in secure, hybrid cloud environments.
About the ACM-ICPC
Headquartered at Baylor University, the
ACM-ICPC is a global competition among the world’s university students,
nurturing new generations of talent in the science and art of information
technology. For more information about the ACM-ICPC, including downloadable
high resolution photographs and videos, visit ICPC headquarters and ICPCNews. Additional information can be found via the
“Battle of the Brains” podcast series. Follow the contest on
Twitter @ICPCNews and #ICPC2016.
About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, with
more than 100,000 members, is the world’s largest educational and scientific
computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers, professionals, and
students to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s
challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through
strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of
technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by
providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and
professional networking. For more information, see www.acm.org.
About IBM
IBM is a globally integrated technology and
consulting company. With operations in more than 170 countries, IBM attracts
and retains some of the world’s most talented people to help solve problems and
provide an edge for businesses, governments and non-profits. Innovation is at
the core of IBM’s strategy. The company develops and sells software and systems
hardware and a broad range of infrastructure, focusing on growth initiatives
such as cognitive computing, cloud computing, big data and analytics, mobile,
social business and security. For more information, visit www.ibm.com.
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