The University of Illinois at Springfield will host a round of competition in an international programming contest on Saturday, November 1. Spectators are welcome.
Sponsored by IBM and the Association for Computing Machinery, the 33rd annual ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest – also known as the Global "Battle of the Brains" Software Competition – sets three-member teams of university students against each other in a competition to solve real-world problems.
The event has become the largest and most prestigious competition of its kind, each year attracting thousands of students – including some of the world's finest students in computing sciences and engineering – from universities around the world. Ninety winning teams from regional contests, held from September to December, will advance to the World Finals, which for 2009 will be hosted by KTH – Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
At UIS, 18 teams from eight colleges and universities will compete. Teams will meet for registration and welcome from 9 to 10 a.m. in Brookens Auditorium, lower level of Brookens Library on the UIS campus. Team members, special guests, and a representative from IBM will be introduced and the competition will begin at 12:30 p.m. An awards ceremony beginning at 6 p.m. in Brookens Auditorium will present ribbons to the top four teams and prizes to the top three teams. The UIS Computer Science Club will host the event, which is sponsored locally by UIS, Novanis, and Capitol Strategies.
Last year, five teams from the UIS competition site placed among the top 10 in the Midwest Regionals and two teams from the UIS competition attended the World Finals.
For more information about the UIS competition, contact Laszlo Acs, past-president of the UIS Computer Science Club, at 622-5398.
