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    Russia takes the lead again!

    The finale of ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is the biggest and most prestigious contest and IT event of the year took place in Beijing. Project 5-100 universities such as MIPT, ITMO University and the Ural Federal University (UrFU) were represented as well.

    Russian Federation – On 19 April 2018, the main duel between the world’s best young programmers concluded in Beijing with the Russian teams emerging top at the world’s competitive programming competition once again; amidst teams from China and Korea being their greatest rivals.

    A total of 140 teams from 51 countries made it to the final of the world’s largest contest, including 11 Russian teams – five of which were from the leading Russian universities participating in the Project 5-100 initiative. These universities include MIPT, ITMO University (the world record-breakers in terms of the number of competitions won), the Higher School of Economics (HSE), UrFU and Novosibirsk State University (NSU).

    The Russian teams successfully clinched the World Champion Cup and four out of 13 medals, outstripping other countries. Teams from China and the USE won three medals each; while teams from Japan, Korea and Lithuania received one medal each.

    The Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU) came in first position and seized the World Champion cup. MSU, MIPT, Peking University and University of Tokyo were awarded the Gold medals; while Seoul National University, University of South Wales, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University were awarded the Silver medals respectively. In addition, ITMO University, the University of Central Florida, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Vilnius University and UrFU successfully clinched the Bronze Medals.

    Unlike previous years, this year’s competition witnessed a total of 13 medals being awarded instead.

    “This year’s contest witnessed several highly-competitive teams from all over the world. Apart from the participation by universities from Saint Petersburg, there were also teams from Poland and Korea. The contest was held at Peking University and the institution had made considerable effort to ensure high levels of organisation throughout the event.

    The two leading universities from Moscow namely MIPT and MSU have also managed to garner impressive results; with the team from MIPT winning the Gold medal at the international level in particular. They have achieved the most outstanding performance throughout the history of MIPT’s participation in the event over the years. I would also like to note that in comparison to all other global cities, the number of participating universities from Moscow is the highest with a total of four universities being represented at the event.

    Once again, my heartiest congratulations to the Cryptozoology team! We are proud of our students,” said Alexey Maleev, the Cryptozoology team leader and technology entrepreneurship director at MIPT.

    The scale of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest is four times larger than that of the traditional Olympics: this year ICPC (including regional qualifiers) comprised of approximately 50,000 best programming students from about 3,100 universities representing 111 countries.

    “This year, MIPT, MSU and ITMO University provided the strongest teams to represent our country and they were among the leading teams during qualifiers. Their competitors from the Peking university, Seoul National University and Tsinghua University were highly competitive as well. As usual, the competition was intense and it was very difficult to predict who will emerge as the world champion this year,” says Roman Elizarov, the ICPC Northern Eurasia Chief Judge and ITMO University tutor.

    The Russian programmers have been participating in ICPC since 1993 and have constantly been taking the lead in the world contest from the year 2000. For six years, from 2012 through 2017, the two teams from St. Petersburg University (SPbU) and ITMO University have been holding the world record in terms of championship title.

    “Programming is becoming a mind sport of the future, which is as interesting as a game of chess; and the Russians are second to none in this field,” points out Vladimir Vasilyev, Rector of ITMO University and Vice-President of the Russian Union of Rectors.

    The teams competing in the ICPC comprised of three students age up to 25 years old. Apart from the logic and ability to work under time pressure, participants have to show that they can work as a team, distribute and balance tasks across the members of the team. The team that manages to solve the most problems accurately within the shortest time period will emerge as the winner.  It should also be noted that this year, the scripts authorised for use during the event include Kotlin, a script developed by the Russian programmers from JetBrains.

    This is a momentous event for the Russian IT industry. In May 2017, Google announced alongside Java, Kotlin will be the main script for the creation of mobile applications for Android. This is perhaps the greatest achievement of Russian programmers. Android-based smartphones and tablets account for over half of the global market and this share is only increasing. According to the experts, within a five-year period, Kotlin has been foreseen to becoming one of the three most popular programming language in the world,”  said Roman Elizarov, Project Manager of Kotlin at JetBrains.

    Eleven teams from six Russian universities successfully made it to the finals of ICPC, and these institutions include: Moscow Physical-Technical University, Moscow State University, ITMO University (Saint Petersburg), Saint Petersburg State University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow Aviation Institute, Novosibirsk State University, Perm State University, Saratov State University, Academic University (Saint Petersburg), Ural Federal University (Yekaterinburg). The champions of ICPC will be receiving a grand prize value of $15,000 while those who won the Silver medals will get to receive a grand total of $6,000 each.

    International Collegiate Programming Contest is the oldest and the most important championship on sport programming in the world. The competition is held annually since 1977 under the auspices of the Association for computing machinery (ACM). Teams that passed multiple stages of regional selection are competing in the final stage of the championship.

    Complete results table is available here