Event

“Survival of the Fittest”: 13th ACM-ICPC Asia Regional Dhaka Site Event 2010

Soi N.

NSU has been hosting this international event for the last nine years with the view to share knowledge

THE 13th Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC) 2010 was held at North South University on November 5-6. NSU has been hosting this international event for the last nine years with the view to share knowledge, exchange ideas and build programming capabilities among the participants. This year 102 teams participated from 43 universities and among them the only university from abroad was Fudan University from China. The event sponsor was IBM and event partners were Therapy BD Ltd. and Genuity Systems Ltd.

On November 5, the inaugural ceremony took place at the NSU plaza where the chief guest UGC Chairman, Prof Nazrul Islam inaugurated the event. The special guest of the event was Md. Azim Uddin Ahmed, Chairman - Board of Governors, NSU Foundation. The event was chaired by Dr. Hafiz G. A. Siddiqi, Vice Chancellor, NSU. While greeting the participants the UGC Chairman said, “The students are the future of the country.

The contest is a mind war where the fittest will win.” He congratulated the NSU foundation and NSU family for developing their own campus. He also acknowledged the new Private University Act 2010, passed in the parliament to ensure good quality of education and physical infrastructure.

Abul L. Haque, Director, ACM-ICPC 2010 Dhaka Site and also the Dean of Engineering and Applied Sciences Department, NSU, introduced all the teams respectively according to their institutes. He mentioned that the contest is to provide opportunities to interact with students from different universities, to sharpen their mental capabilities of problem- solving and pursue teamwork expertise. During all the reception addresses made by the speakers and the director, they shared a common belief that the fittest of all will survive and come out as the top winner.

Talking to Star Campus, the only international participant Fudan University expressed that it is not only appealing but also challenging to be part of such a contest,which allows to practice programming intelligence and practical know-how's and be the best of all. It brings recognition and honour as well as sets out a strong contender-ship at the world programming contest. There were only two all-girl teams participating from Int. Islamic University of Chittagong. Talking to members of one of these teams, Minara, Taiyeba and Samia, said that it was more of a satisfying experience for them as the problems are about logic gates, networking and encoding.

After the ceremony a preliminary mock test was held to make the participants test out their timing and encoding insufficiency and find out the boundaries and prepare for it.

On the next day, November 6,the actual contest was held from 9 in the morning till 2 in the afternoon where the participants had to solve 8-12 problems. The chief judge of the contest was Dr. M. Zafar Iqbal, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology while the judging director was Mr. Shahriar Manzoor (World Finals Judge 2003-2010), South-East University. Other judges were Dr. Mostafa Akbar (BUET), MR. Javed Siddique (NSU), Dr. Mumit Khan (BRAC) etc. The top winners of the contest were announced in the evening. The B.U.E.T Annihilator (coach- Dr. M. Kaykobad, contestants- Tasnim Imran Sunny, Muntasir Mashuq, Anindya Das) were champions, the Fudan A.C.E (coach- Yonghui Wu, contestants- Yang He, Hanjun Dai, Xiangyan Sun) was second and the B.U.E.T Budbud (coach- Sohel Rahman, contestants- Md. Enzam Hussain, F. A. Rezaur, Mir Wasi Ahmed) was third. The winners were awarded certificates, badges, and brochures. All the participants received complimentary t-shirts and bags.