MOSCOW – EKATERINBURG, June 20, 2013. /Press-service of the Ural Federal University/. Agreements have been reached that commit the ACM ICPC World Finals Championship to Ekaterinburg in 2014. The ICPC Executive Director, Professor Bill Poucher of Baylor University, and the Rector of Ural Federal University (UrFU) Viktor Koksharov will sign the relevant documents on Monday, June 24.
This year, for the very first time, the ACM ICPC World Finals are being held in Russia when the 37th World Finals will be hosted by St. Petersburg sponsored by ITMO University, which previously won the World Championship four times. The competition operates under the auspices of ACM, the world's leading IT society, and has been sponsored by IBM since 1997.
In May 2012, Ekaterinburg demonstrated its readiness to host over 120 student teams of 3 selected from 91 countries throughout the world, when UrFU rector Viktor Koksharov presented the UrFU bid (co-prepared by the University, the Administration of Ekaterinburg, and the Government of Sverdlovsk Region) during the 2012 World Finals in Warsaw, Poland.
“Ekaterinburg is ready to host the contest,” Viktor Koksharov says. “Our commitment to host the World Finals is based mainly upon the fact of the success of our Ural contestants – students of UrFU Institute of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, who several time were awarded the medals of the contest; another precondition is the fact that our university has strong school of programmers training.”
“The ICPC World Finals visiting committee was most impressed by the hospitality and community commitment of Ekaterinburg for UrFU’s bid to host in 2014. There is no question about what the “E” in “eBurg” stands for,” said Dr. Poucher, Professor of Computer Science at Baylor University and ACM Fellow. “That ‘E’ is the ‘Excellence’ of the university, the ‘Energy’ of the students, faculty, and community, and ‘Enterprise’ of the global IT community leaders that call Ekaterinburg home. We are delighted to bring the best and the brightest of the world’s problem solvers to Ekaterinburg in 2014.”
Each year since 1998, UrFu has advanced to the ACM-ICPC World Finals - three times being awarded bronze medals. The university team is actively preparing for the upcoming visit to Russia’s Northern Capital to compete in the 2013 World Finals on July 3. They are being trained by Magaz Asanov, director of the Institute, and by the coaches – fellow students and graduates who are gifted problem solvers, all successfully working in IT sphere.
The university’s belief that ACM ICPC World Finals will be a significant event for the local community is shared completely by the authorities of Sverdlovsk Region and city of Ekaterinburg. The programming contest will allow the city to test itself at the highest levels of hospitality right before the world football championship of 2018 and the EXPO-2020 global fair, for which Ekaterinburg is competing. In July 2012, UrFU Rector Viktor Koksharov, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeniy Kuyvashev, and the Head of Ekaterinburg City Administration Alexandr Yakob signed the joint agreement on cooperation.
A major factor that made it possible for Ekaterinburg to make a bid for the contest is active participation by the hotel business to assure the finest possible hospitality. In February 2013, managers of Ekaterinburg’s leading hotels agreed to cap the prices and reserve the necessary number of rooms for the competitions in 2014, making it possible to compete with cities with large conference hotels. The agreement between Ural Federal and the hotels was signed under the patronage of the Administration of Ekaterinburg.
Ekaterinburg is one of the most dynamic cities of Russia. Today it is striving to be recognized as the world city. However, the key condition for such status is the potential capacity of the city which is essential for fully engaging the global IT-driven economy. In earlier years the ACM ICPC World Finals were hosted by cities like San Jose (Silicon Valley), Shanghai, Tokyo, and Vancouver – the world’s leading centers of economy and technology.
The ACM ICPC World Finals in Ekaterinburg will draw considerable public interest in computer science and sports programming training in Ural and Siberia – for such contests have never been held so deep within the Eurasian continent before. This will spur developing different kinds of competitive training of programmers in universities. In turn, this will provide the boost for regional economy – for every economic sphere depends upon professionals of programming.
The history of ACM ICPC World Finals
The International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) has been held since 1977. It is held under the aegis of Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) – the world’s largest and oldest international organization that operates at the highest levels of the field of computer sciences. The rules are following: a team of three students is provided with one single computer and has to solve the maximal number of problems within five hours by authoring software. In cases when the number of solved problems is equal, the team with the least cumulative times to complete solutions is proclaimed winner. The winners and participants of ICPC are the most desirable employees in world’s best computer companies. Since 1997 the contest is sponsored by IBM.
The organization of the ICPC includes three stages: quarterfinals (zonal), semifinals (regional) and the World Finals. The winners of regionals are passing to the World Finals and there compete for the title of champion. There are different regional groups – Europe, Northern America, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific Ocean, Africa, and the Middle East. Russian teams participated in ICPC for the first time in the 1993-1994 seasons, when a new Eastern-European region was established specially for post-Soviet countries providing Russian universities the opportunity to show their excellence globally. In 2012 ICPC involved 29 479 students from 2 322 universities, which represent 91 country of the world.
UrFU has the substantial experience organizing competitions by the rules of the ACM ICPC. Every year, the university organizes the ICPC quarterfinals, which is part of the official qualification. UrFU also organizes the Ural Open Championship which attract the finest teams from Russia. This year’s Ural Open reached new height becoming international. Russian teams were joined by the best teams of China, Poland, Kazakhstan and Belorussia.
Source:
press-service of the Ural Federal University
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Dmitry Benemansky, Head of Press Office
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