11-2-09

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. - Three students from Lycoming College will work to sharpen their computer programming skills when they compete in the world’s most prestigious computer programming competition. The 34th ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), sponsored by IBM, will gather the best and brightest computer programmers for an all-out “battle of the brains.”

Lycoming will compete regionally at Wilkes University Saturday, Nov. 7. Other teams will be from Bucknell University, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, Moravian College, Saint Joseph’s University, Susquehanna University, University of Scranton, Villanova University and Wilkes.

Lycoming’s Segmentation Faults team consists of Doug Brauning (Harrisburg, Pa.), Chris Dahlheimer (Red Lion, Pa.) and Eric Dingler (Lock Haven, Pa.). Geoffrey Knauth, a part-time instructor of computer science, will coach the team.

Teams comprised of three students will be challenged to use their programming skills, creativity and business sense to solve complex, real world problems under a grueling five-hour deadline. This year’s regional competitions of the ICPC are expected to include tens of thousands of students from universities in 90 countries on six continents, all vying for a spot at the contest’s World Finals. Out of the tens of thousands of participants, only 100 teams will compete for awards, prizes, scholarships, and bragging rights to the “world’s smartest trophy” Feb. 1-6, 2010, in Harbin, China, hosted by Harbin Engineering University.

With the rapid pace of change in today’s information technology industry, integrated approaches to business and technology at the university level are essential. Through this collaboration between business and academia, the contest exposes the brightest college and university information technology students around the globe to so-called open source technologies being adopted by innovative businesses and organizations.

“The world faces some really daunting challenges,” said Doug Heintzman, director of strategy for IBM Software Group and sponsorship executive of the ICPC. “Problems of pandemic diseases, global climate change, finite energy resources, population density and congestion and urban development planning. It’s going to take some very bright, creative and innovative problem-solvers to tackle these problems. So we believe it’s very important for the industry and academia to work in partnership to promote excellence in problem solving.”

IBM’s sponsorship of the ACM-ICPC is just one of the company’s many university-facing programs focusing on open standards skills. The IBM Academic Initiative is another, offering colleges and universities a wide range of technology benefits including free access to IBM software, discounted hardware, course materials, training and curriculum development to better educate millions of students for a more competitive IT workforce.

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