For the fourth year in a row, a team of Illinois computer science students is heading to the ACM International Collegiate Programming Competition world finals in Harbin, China. The event is the most elite collegiate programming competition in the world, comprising just 103 teams from across the globe.
The Illinois team is one of just 21 U.S. universities who qualified for the grueling competition that pits the Illinois team against ten mind-bending, real-world programming problems, with only five hours to solve as many as possible. Problems range from designing an instant translation device to helping commuters get to work faster through mass transit systems.
The Illinois team includes computer science PhD students Chi Wang and Qieyun Dai, and computer science sophomore Justin Kopinsky. The team is advised by computer science PhD student Yintao Yu and staff adviser Marsha Woodbury. Yu and Woodbury will both travel with the team to the world finals.
Illinois students have qualified for the world finals 7 of the last 8 years. The competition organizers have announced that Illinois computer science instructor Marsha Woodbury will be honored with a Coach’s Award for her success in guiding Illinois students to this prestigious competition.
Illinois CS students back at Siebel Center will be able to test their mettle in a weeklong contest to solve ICPC questions. See the contest site at cs.illinois.edu/versus for more details.
The team and contest is sponsored by Palantir Technologies, a company that employs several former Illinois programming team world finalists.
For more about the event, including live contest updates, visit icpc.baylor.edu.
___________________
Contact: Jennifer LaMontagne, associate director of communications, Department of Computer Science, 217/333-4049.
If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, Engineering Communications Office, 217/244-7716, editor.