Student computing club eyes victory at ICPC World Finals
The UniMelb Competitive Programming Club (UMCPC) will be heading to Egypt for the International Collegiate Competitive Programming Contest (ICPC) 2023 World Finals in April 2024.
The UMCPC has accomplished the amazing feat of qualifying for the ICPC World Finals in 2022 and 2023, which will be held concurrently in Luxor, Egypt, from 14-19 April. Due to the pandemic and recent tensions in the region, the tournament was postponed and rescheduled.
ICPC 2021 World Finals in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The club’s pursuit of excellence has earned them three consecutive qualifications for the ICPC World Finals in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The club’s ICPC journey began in 2021 when team “taxiOverFlow,” consisting of former Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT) students Quang Ong, Netanya Robinson and Michael Zhao, qualified for the ICPC World Finals 2021. The team received an honourable mention for their performance.
This was the first time in 15 years that a student team from the University had qualified for the ICPC World Finals.
Team "taxiOverFlow" at the 2021 ICPC World Finals in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
In 2022, team “fightUsUNSW” continued the streak with FEIT students Quang Ong, Netanya Robinson and Michael Zhao qualifying.
Then, in 2023, team “Arts Students” qualified, with FEIT students Phuc Nguyen, Hoang Giap Vu and Quang Anh Trinh.
Left to right: Hoang Giap Vu, Phuc Nguyen, Quang Anh Trinh and Dr Junhao Gan.
Dr Junhao Gan, senior lecturer in the School of Computing and Information Systems and UMCPC coach, said the teams’ success was a tribute to their outstanding talent and hard work, and the School’s teaching and computing expertise.
“I'm immensely proud of our teams for earning their place among the best. Their dedication and hard work have brought them to the clubs’ third finals in recent years,” Dr Gan said.
Dr Bill Poucher, ICPC Executive Director, and Dr Junhao Gan.
The ICPC is a world-renowned competitive programming contest. It asks participants to tackle around ten difficult programming problems in five hours. Students must not only solve the problems but also code their answers and pass all the test cases.
To qualify for the ICPC World Finals, teams must first succeed in the South Pacific Independent Regional Contest Divisional, with only the top 15 of about 100 teams advancing to the Regional Finals. The top two university teams, each from a different university, are then selected to represent the South Pacific at the ICPC World Finals, which feature over 840 contestants from 170+ universities in 50+ countries.