Aleppo University Comes Third in Middle East Competitions at the ICPC Finals in Thailand
A team of three students from the Syrian University of Aleppo, a trainer and a supervisor on Thursday won the third prize, at the level of North Africa and Middle East, within the International Collegiate Programming Contest ACM-ICPC Finals held on May 19th in Phuket, Thailand.
The team occupied the 80th position among 128 other teams from all over the world. “The result was good as this is Aleppo University’s first international participation in such a contest,” the Middle East Regional Representative in Syria Tarek Jaber told SANA.
This year’s competition included 128 teams comprised of three students each. More than 300,000 students participated in local and regional competitions, with only the top teams earning a place in the world’s oldest and most prestigious programming competition held yesterday. Students were demanded to solve a series of complex real-world problems in just five hours
Activities of the international competition kicked off last Sunday with the participation of teams from the Syrian universities of Damascus, Aleppo and Tishreen. The Syrian universities participation in this competition was based on the results of the finals of Arab Collegiate Programming Contest 2015 which was held in Cairo last November and in which the Syrian universities came in the first ten positions. 83 teams from the universities of 20 Arab countries took part in that contest.
ACM-ICPC World Finals 2016 is one of the most important events in programming competitions life known as the “Battle of Brains”
Aleppo team of students comprised Hasan Jaddou’, Rami Rahmeh and Sami Rahmeh, while Damascus University team comprised Khaled Qattini, Mu’az Tuwani and Joud ZouZo and Tishreen University team comprised Sami Emad majd al-Ghada and Nidal Jarrar.
The Syrian teams participation in this global competition is a great achievement particularly because Syria is relatively new to such kind of competitions and it is now experiencing very difficult circumstances because of the ongoing terrorist war on the country.
The participation prove the Syrian youths’ ability to be creative and competitive to their counterparts who represent the oldest and best world universities like St. Petersburg State University, Harvard, MIT, Moscow Institute and Tokyo University.
St. Petersburg State University came first while Harvard University took the third position in the competition.
According to the Executive Director of the Programming Contest in Syria Jaafar al-Khier, the Syrian participation in the ACM-ICPC is organized and supported by the Syrian Computer Society in cooperation with the Ministry of Higher Education, the universities of Damascus, Aleppo and Tishreen and in coordination with the regional committee of the competition.
It is the first time Syria takes part with three teams from three universities in the international contest. It is also the fourth time Tishreen University represent the Syrian universities in the last three international competitions which were held in Moscow in 2013 and 2014 and in Morocco in 2015.
Hamda Mustafa