This year 100 three-member teams of university students managed to make it to the world finals in the International Collegiate Programming Contest. Teams released a balloon each time they successfully resolved one of the 11 programming challenges to be tackled within the competition's five-hour time frame.

In Banff, Alberta, 300 elite contestants from more than 33 countries march into an opening ceremony, ready to engage in a heated battle for supremacy. Coaches nervously watch from the viewing gallery as the teams they have nurtured for months prepare for combat. Extra-tight security is on hand to keep corporate interlopers at bay.

As tension mounts, massive digital screens keep a running tally of scores and the fastest times. Within half an hour, a small balloon rises and floats above the crowd, a sign that other contestants eye with trepidation — and some envy. That balloon marks the first in a long series of victories to come. By the time the competition is over, hundreds of multi-coloured balloons fill the room, like a child's birthday party in full swing.

But this contest is no sports event, and it's far from child's play. It's the annual Association for Computing Machinery — International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC), held April 6 to 10 at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

It's also dubbed "The Battle of the Brains."

Those balloons mark the successful resolution of one of 11 programming challenges to be tackled within a five-hour time frame. The challenges weren't easy, ranging from developing code to cracking a 10-character password to streamlining the workings of a neural network for cellphones.

This year, 100 three-member teams of university students managed to make it to these prestigious world finals — and recruiters have been eyeing these prospects as the quintessential gold mine of top-grade programming talent.

Tough competition

Whether they come out on top at the end of the day's work or not, these competitors are about as elite as it gets. This event is considered by many participants to be their ticket to fame and fortune in business, academia or research, says Doug Heintzman, director of strategy for Lotus Software at the IBM Software Group, the sponsor of this year's event.

The ACM-ICPC is now in its 32nd year of posing mind-boggling software programming challenges based on real-world problems to ferret out the brightest and the best young talent on the planet. In the 2007-08 academic year, 1,821 universities in 83 countries put forward 6,700 teams at 213 regional competitions. That doesn't even factor in the many teams that competed at the university level to make it to the regionals.

ICPC winners

The top 12 teams in this year's Association for Computing Machinery — International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC) are:

• St. Petersburg State University of IT, Mechanics and Optics, Russia (Gold, World Champion)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S. (Gold, 2nd Place)
• Izhevsk State Technical University, Russia (Gold, 3rd Place)
• Lviv National University, Ukraine (Gold, 4th Place)
• Moscow State University, Russia (Silver, 5th Place)
• Tsinghua University, China (Silver, 6th Place)
• Stanford University, U.S. (Silver, 7th Place)
• University of Zagreb, Croatia (Silver, 8th Place)
• University of Waterloo, Canada (Bronze, 9th Place)
• Petrozavodsk State University, Russia (Bronze, 10th Place)
• St. Petersburg State University, Russia (Bronze, 11th Place)
• Belarusian State University, Belarus (Bronze, 12th Place)

Surrounding the "games" is lots of talk that mirrors any high-level athletic event. There are the explosive starters who often flag in the home stretch. There are teams that are known for their ability to stage dramatic comebacks in the final hours. Students from a German team could be heard comparing notes on finding competitive-level coaching skills. Others talk about switching universities in order to increase their chances of making it to the world stage.

Former teammates who have transferred sometimes end up competing against each other. Coaches spend months selecting the right combination of raw computing and strategic skills to create their dream teams. People talk of wunderkinds on international teams who leave the rest of the field in awe of their talent.

Gordon Cormack, professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, has been coaching the University of Waterloo team for 12 years. He is especially proud of the fact that it is the only team to have qualified for the ACM-ICPC 16 years in a row. Waterloo has also won two world competitions to date.

"This is very much a sport," Cormack says. "You see the same drama and challenges as any physically demanding event. The intensity of the competition comes out in their body language. We've been through a lot of nail-biting sessions and made some spectacular comebacks."

Not surprisingly, China and Russia are always touted as leading contenders while Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Waterloo are eyed by competitors as the top North American teams to beat.

This year, the 2007 winning team from Warsaw was the odds-on favourite, but in a surprise result, last year's champions didn't even crack the top 10.

It was Russia's St. Petersburg State University of Mechanics, IT and Optics that garnered the top prize this year — the only team that managed to solve eight out of 11 questions within the given time limit. It was part of a Russian juggernaut that captured three of the top five spots, with second place going to MIT and fourth to Ukraine.

The University of Waterloo team made the top 10 rankings, placing ninth. Other Canadian teams at this year's competition were the University of Alberta (which hosted the event), the University of Calgary, the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Saskatchewan, which qualified for the first time in 12 years.

The ultimate talent pool

This year 100 three-member teams of university students managed to make it to the world finals in the International Collegiate Programming Contest. Teams released a balloon each time they successfully resolved one of the 11 programming challenges to be tackled within the competition's five-hour time frame.

The ACM-ICPC competition doesn't end with the awards ceremonies. A room full of young students with programming skills of stratospheric proportions is something that talent-hungry organizations love to get their hands on.

It becomes a matter of corporate — and in some cases national — pride to bag these prospects for internships and/or full-time jobs as quickly as possible. After all, say event organizers, these are the kids who will solve some of the biggest problems facing the world in the future, from water resource management to traffic congestion.

Igor Naverniouk, a former finalist who came to Banff to help coach the UBC team, says when he made it to the finals, recruiters were at the ready. In fact, Google flew the top 40 teams to California, where it was straight to the final interview — no pre-screening required.

"I know six or seven of us got jobs," says Naverniouk, who now works on the internet company's television advertising team.

Former UBC team member Yury Kholondyrev also visited the Google campus but decided to take another path. He was recruited by Bear Stearns in New York City and has since moved on to a smaller investment bank in the city where he says he can tackle more "intellectually challenging" problems.

Since many of the participants are second- and third-year students, recruitment for internships is even more intense, says Heintzman. He tells the story of one University of Calgary student he was trying to recruit at the Prague finals who had not joined his teammates in accepting an IBM internship in Toronto.

"It turns out he was only 15," Heintzman said. "We couldn't hire him!"

Heintzman notes that when the Saratov State University team won in 2006, team-members were invited to a reception in Moscow hosted by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Some of the members now work at IBM's research facility in Switzerland.

"It's truly a life-changing event for these kids," says Heintzman. "One day, they're students on campus in a city outside of Moscow. The next, they're talking to the president and working in a Nobel Prize-winning research facility."

The skills displayed at the ACM-ICPC — whether at the regional or world level — represent more than just raw programming genius, he adds.

"What drives these students is problem solving," Heintzman says. "Competitions like this are a way to help them apply those skills beyond theory, to the real world. Many of them have no idea of the potential they can offer in the business world."

These great problem-solvers, he says, will no doubt end up in research, in academia or recruited by the likes of IBM, Google or Microsoft. "There is absolutely no question that every student here will have a great career."

The only question, it seems, is what research facility, university or corporation will come out on top in the race for this top talent.

The author is a Toronto-based freelance writer

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