Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT) has won first place in the world, in addition to other advanced positions, in the global IEEEXtreme Programming Competition. It is an annual hackathon and competitive programming challenge organized by IEEE.
The University came out victorious against 4,555 teams representing prestigious international universities as MIT, McGill, Warwick, and many others. PSUT has consistently participated in this competition and last year won fourth and sixth places globally, also coming first in the Arab world for six consecutive years.
The members of the winning team ‘Aurora’ are Muhammad Abu Abboud, Hamza Zagha, and Motasem Al-Kayed, the students of King Hussein School of Computing Sciences.
PSUT has a bright history in IEEExtreme since it started to participate in this prestigious programming competition. For six years in a row, PSUT ranked first among all participants from Arab countries, surpassing other Arab universities.
PSUT’s excellence in this competition was not limited to the Arab region, it has been progressing year after year. Since the first participation in 2015, where it was ranked the 17th worldwide, PSUT’s teams were keeping the momentum of improving themselves each year. It is ranked 8th, 13th, and 4th in 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively.
In 2019, two of the university’s teams won the fourth and the sixth positions worldwide. Consistently climbing the way up to the glorious victory in 2020, when PSUT ranked the first on top of all world’s 4500 participating teams.
In 2020, apart from the first-place winner team “Aurora”, the other participating PSUT teams were placed 10th, 78th, 79th, and 101st places worldwide.
All teams prepared under the supervision, training, and follow-up of the School’s Dean, Dr. Ashraf Ahmed, and Dr. Firas Ghanem.
PSUT’s long term vision, planning, and investment in its best students made it possible to reach the position where it is now considered a serious competitor. It is not rare to find full support for those excellent students on all levels from the university’s academic staff, administrative staff, and even the higher management of the university, represented by the university’s president and deans’ council.
On top of all that support, the enthusiasm and deep passion of Her Royal Highness Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, had the greatest influence and inspired the teams to do their utmost.
IEEExtreme is an annual hackathon and competitive programming challenge in which teams of IEEE Student members, supported by an IEEE Student Branch and proctored by an IEEE member, compete in a 24-hour time span against each other to solve a set of programming problems that vary in complexity and the needed skills to finish.
The first competition was held in 2006 with only 44 participating teams. More than 4500 teams participated in the last version of the competition in 2020, representing most of the world’s countries, and gathering top programmers from the best universities.
Teams of up to three student IEEE members receive sets of programming problems over a period of 24 hours. All teams receive the same problems to solve and are expected to solve the problems without direct outside assistance. The more they solve, the more points they score. Students submit their solutions using an online tool, and points are awarded based on how the problem was solved, the time it took, and its difficulty.
In addition to the problem set that has to be solved, this competition adds mental and physical fatigue as a factor in making it very challenging and demanding. Only teams who manage their time and resources can finish with good results.