St Petersburg University students are bronze medallists of the International Collegiate Programming Contest
The 45th Annual International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals were held in Bangladesh. The St Petersburg University team took tenth place in the world ranking ahead of programmers from the University of Oxford, Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge.
The finalists were the students of 140 universities from 45 countries. They had to solve 12 problems in several programming languages in five hours. The St Petersburg University team − LOUD Enough (Ivan Bochkov, Vladislav Makarov and Nikita Gaevoi) solved eight of the twelve problems. The University teams won ICPC medals nine times under the leadership of their coach Andrei Lopatin in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016, and 2017. In 2011, they became European champions; and in 2017 and 2018, they were medallists in Northern Eurasia. In 2014 and 2016, they ranked first in the world.
The results of ICPC-2022 are available here.
St Petersburg University trains highly qualified specialists in the field of Information Technology. In addition to gaining knowledge as part of studying in academic programmes, the University students have the opportunity to study various areas of programming more deeply and participate in all-Russian and international contests. Highly qualified trainers conduct extra-curricular training sessions in Olympiad programming for students at St Petersburg University. Students can demonstrate their knowledge at the University team championships three times a year.
According to the rules of the contest, each team consists of three contestants provided with one computer and some mathematical problems. According to the contest rules, the solution to the problem is a programme written in one of the acceptable programming languages. The programme has to pass tests given by the judges. The team is ranked first according to the most problems solved. Teams placed in the first twelve places who solve the same number of problems are ranked first by the least total time. Penalty time is counted in compliance with the special rules. The finals were preceded by university-level semi-finals and quarter-finals, as well as internal university competitions. Thus, those who took part in the finals are truly the best.
The students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (the USA) took first place in the ICPC-2022. Two Russian teams represented by students of St Petersburg University and the National Research University Higher School of Economics became bronze medallists. The next International Collegiate Programming World Contest will be held in Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt).