ACM International Programming Contest Results

[Jerrek]

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/Apr/1131800.htm

SHANGHAI, China & SOMERS, N.Y. -- Students from host school Shanghai Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China, took first place in the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), sponsored by IBM. The international "battle of the brains," in Shanghai, China, challenged students to tackle a semester's worth of computer programming curriculum under a grueling five-hour deadline, in a battle of logic, strategy, and mental endurance. The ACM-ICPC World Finals champions walk away with IBM prizes, scholarships, and bragging rights to the world's "smartest trophy."

Shanghai Jiaotong University was the only team to correctly solve eight of the ten problems in this year's Contest. Moscow State University, St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics, and University of Waterloo finished the competition in second, third, and fourth places, respectively, and all won Gold medals.

Whooo whoo!

Gold medals went to:
1. Shanghai Jiaotong University (solved all 8 problems)
2. Moscow State University (solved 7 problems, but was fastest)
3. St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics (solved 7 problems)
4. University of Waterloo (solved 7 problems, but was slowest)

Silver medals went to:
5. University of Wroclaw
6. Fudan University
7. KTH - Royal Institute of Technology
8. Norwegian University of Science & Technology

Bronze medals went to:
9. Izhevsk State Technical University
10. POLITEHNICA University Bucharest
11. Peking University
12. The University of Hong Kong

Congratulations to all of those teams, but especially Waterloo, since it is MY SCHOOL!

Other universities in North America:

17. University of Illinois (solved 5 problems)
17. University of British Columbia (solved 5 problems)

29. California Institute of Technology (solved 4 problems)
29. Duke University (solved 4 problems)
29. M.I.T. (solved 4 problems)
29. University of Alberta (solved 4 problems)

You can view the problem set here:
http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/Finals/2005FinalsProblemSet.pdf

Also, congratulations to the University of Cape Town for winning the regional prize (Africa and Middle East). It is clear you guys are the best in the region!

Team Waterloo
http://icpc.baylor.edu/dmt/media/indexed/0406-2350-IMG_7557[LO].jpg

Slashdot's discussion here:
http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/05/04/07/1437242.shtml?tid=156&tid=146&tid=14

I personally rate the University of Waterloo (in Canada) the top computer science university in North America. Yes high profile places like MIT have some brilliant people, but I've found the University of Waterloo has the most consistant quality of graduates. If you look at the accomplishments of Waterloo grads it pretty impressive. Research In Motion (Blackberries) are probably the most well known company founded by UofW grads, but there are lots of others which are also very impressive. Thier policy on requiring LOTS of real world experience for the degree and work/research opportunities in there technology park also gives lots of great experiance.

I've found UofW grads aren't those "fresh out of college" types who have some book knowledge, but not much practical experience. They tend to walk out after graduating ready to REALLY contribute instead of needing a lot of "mentoring" which most fresh grads need (I know I did).

Boy it does the heart good to read strangers write something like that about your school. I'm guessing it is because of the insane Math Faculty program and co-op experience. Waterloo has the largest Math Faculty in the world, and the largest co-op program. In fact, it started the concept of co-op, and is was the first university with a math faculty.