2024 Entelect challenge finals: South Africa’s top coders battle it out at Comic Con Africa
The 2024 Entelect Challenge culminated in the finals, held on the main stage at Comic Con Africa on Saturday, 28 September.
Now in its 13th year, the Entelect Challenge is South Africa’s premier coding competition, where students, professional developers, and enthusiasts are tasked with developing an intelligent bot to play a game, designed by the Entelect team.
This year’s game, Sproutopia, was based on the Discord favourite, Land.io. The objective was to outwit opponents and claim the most land before the round ended, all while dealing with pesky weeds.
“Each year, we aim to build the challenge around a popular game theme, says Bianca McFadyen, Marketing and Communications Manager at Entelect. “The idea behind the theme is not just to appeal to gaming fans, but also to create a game with rules simple enough that anyone with basic programming knowledge can take part.”
Participants had access to the game’s mechanics, including the ability to claim land, attack other players, and collect a variety of power-ups.
They could also code their bots in a programming language of their choice.
Two qualifying tournaments were held throughout the year, each selecting four finalists to compete in the grand finals.
Entelect also hosted friendly matches between the tournaments, allowing competitors to practise and have some fun as they worked towards securing a coveted top eight spot.
“What many people don’t realise is that succeeding in the Entelect Challenge isn’t about having the smartest or fastest bot. It’s really about strategy. Your bot could be quite simple in design, but with the right strategy, it can be very effective. The collaboration within the community also makes it an incredible experience,” McFadyen explains.
The live finals at Comic Con Africa celebrate the finalists and showcase the challenge to the public.
This year, Willie Theron secured first place, winning R70,000 in prize money. Riaan Nel finished second, taking home R35,000, and Marvin Thobejane came third, winning R25,000.
The top eight finalists of the 2024 Entelect Challenge were:
1st place: Willie Theron
2nd place: Riaan Nel
3rd place: Marvin Thobejane
4th place: Jesse Bristow
5th place: Kobus Van Schoor
6th place: Scott Schultz
7th place: Jean-Paul De Conceicao
8th place: Aneso Jairosi
The 2025 Entelect Challenge will launch in the first quarter of next year.
About Entelect
Entelect was founded in 2001, driven by the vision to be a technology service company that delivers quality solutions with exceptional talent.
Now, with over 20 years of experience, Entelect offers end-to-end technology services and solutions through a set of best-practice, team-based engagement models that help their customers go from good to great.
Entelect is currently working on over 2,000 active projects across virtually all industries in Africa, Europe, and Australasia, with over 1,500 qualified software professionals operating from nine global offices.
This includes providing services that range from strategy, digital transformation, and experience design to custom development, testing, and data and analytics.
At its core, Entelect is a culture-first organisation and is recognised as a magnet for outstanding technology talent.
Its talented professionals challenge their customers’ thinking to gain a proper understanding of their business and focus on engineering solutions that deliver real returns.
Click here to learn more about Entelect.