There are no many victories! Each next one is even sweeter than the previous one. Petersburg University team information technologies, mechanics and optics won the main cup of the 2017 ACM ICPC World Programming Championship. This is ITMO's seventh victory in the most prestigious intellectual tournament for young programmers.
Battle of the strongest
The competition of the best students-programmers from more than a hundred countries of the world began on May 20 in Rapid City, in South Dakota, USA. It was attended by 128 teams, 13 of them represented Russia, three from St. Petersburg. The final was awaited not only by the teams, but also by the fans who followed the live broadcast. To become world champions, young programmers had to correctly solve as many as possible of the 12 tasks assigned to them.
The battle was not easy. The teams literally stepped on each other's heels. After 40 minutes of competition, the future champions solved only three problems and were only in ninth place in the standings. But they believed. No. They knew they could do better and faster. In another 20 minutes, the ITMO team had already solved five problems and overtook all rivals. After eight tasks, the leader changed. But the ninth again returned the St. Petersburg team to the first place. After ten solved problems, the teams froze in anticipation of the results.
Pending results. Photo: Department of CT at ITMO University "VKontakte"
Seven time champions
The results of the student championship in sports programming ACM ACPC-2017 have just become known. The first place was taken by the team of ITMO University, adding one more to six victories, - the good news was announced on the official page of the university on the social network at 01:36 Moscow time.
Programmers from ITMO University have confirmed their world record, and the winning cup of the most prestigious student tournament among programmers is going to St. Petersburg again.
The university team was able to correctly solve 10 out of 12 problems, spending the least amount of time on this. It was the time to solve problems and the smaller number of unsuccessful attempts to pass them that provided the team with the seventh ACM ICPC Cup, the press service of ITMO reports.
Here they are, the heroes!
The seventh victory for ITMO University at ACM ICPC, having solved 10 out of 12 problems faster and more competently than all competitors, was brought by students of the department computer technology Ivan Belonogov, Ilya Zban and Vladimir Smykalov. Head coach of the winning team - Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Technologies, Candidate technical sciences Andrey Stankevich.
On April 19, Beijing hosted the culmination of the ACM ICPC-2018 World Programming Championship. The Champions Cup is again leaving for Russia, but this time, for the first time in history, it is for Moscow. On the first line of the ACM ICPC standings - Moscow State University. The second result was shown by the team of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, having received gold medals. For other Russian teams, the games in Beijing were not the most successful. The ITMO University team, the current record holder for the number of victories in the championship, won"bronze" competition. Total among the winners and prize-winners of ACM ICPC-2018- four Russian teams.
MSU team
Every year the most prestigious competition among programmers expands its geography and increases the number of participants: this year 140 teams from 51 countries took part in the championship final. Competitions are held for the 42nd time.
The championship in Beijing has definitely stood out among the latest ACM ICPC contests. Since 2012, two St. Petersburg universities have competed for the championship cup: ITMO University (four wins in the last six years) and St. Petersburg State University (two wins in the last six years). ACM ICPC-2018, which was not the most successful for the two leaders of the contest, opened a new "star" of the championship - the team of Moscow State University. Lomonosov, who had never received the championship title before, but repeatedly took the “gold” of the championship (five times they were in second place).
The Moscow State University team arrived in Beijing with a completely new composition: Mikhail Ipatov, Vladislav Makeev and Grigory Reznikov became champions. The team coach is Elena Andreeva. The students successfully solved nine problems, passing the last one two minutes before the end of the contest. Thus, the championship cup goes to Russia again, but this time to Moscow.
The Moscow team from MIPT also received the second place and a gold medal (eight solved problems). The Peking University team, which got the "gold", finished with the third result, with the fourth — University of Tokyo team.
ITMO University took ninth place in the standings and received a bronze medal in the competition. The team of the university correctly solved 7 problems out of 12. This year, ITMO University was represented in the finals of the World Programming Championship in Beijing by first-year students of the master’s program from the Department of CT Ilya Zban And Ivan Belonogov, which last year brought ICPC champions to the university in Rapid City, as well as a second-year undergraduate student in the Department of CT Mikhail Putilin, going to the final for the first time. The head coach of the team was Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Technologies, Candidate of Technical Sciences Andrei Stankevich, which has prepared more than one generation of sports programming champions. In 2016, he was awarded the prestigious ACM ICPC Senior Coach Award for the fact that for 15 years his wards have reached the finals of the competition.
“We are glad that the ICPC Cup is leaving for Russia again,- says Andrey Stankevich, coach of the ITMO University team. - There were no surprises among the winning teams. All gold medalists are winners of the International school olympiad in Programming (IOI), and they were all considered contenders for the title of champion. In the middle of the competition, the ITMO University team, unfortunately, did not go very well - several problems accumulated in the process, which turned out to be difficult to overcome. Fortunately, a large number of trainings allowed us to achieve stability, and even from a very bad situation, the team managed to come out with a medal.”
In addition to the championship title, gold, silver and bronze medals are up for grabs in the Olympiad: this year 13 teams won medals instead of 12. Among the medalists from Russia, in addition to the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and ITMO University, there is also the Ural Federal University - for them this is the fifth bronze medal in the history of participation in the ACM ICPC.
The result table can be found at the link.
In total, this year Russia was represented in the final by 11 teams, including four teams from Moscow and three from St. Petersburg, as well as participants from other cities: Saratov, Perm, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg. In general, Russian universities have long been assigned the position of championship leaders: teams from the Russian Federation have been participating in the championship since 1993, and since 2000 they have become ACM ICPC absolute champions 13 times. Of these, ITMO University teams won the championship seven times, thus setting a world record.
The International Collegiate Programming Contest has been held annually since 1977 under the auspices of the Association computer science(ACM, New York headquarters). However, despite the fact that the competitions have existed in their current format for more than 40 years, their popularity among young programmers continues to grow year by year. For example, last year over 46,000 students worldwide registered for the competition, four times more than the number of athletes at the Rio Summer Olympics.
This year, 140 teams from 51 countries took part in the final, seven more than last year. Students represented all regions of the world. The competitions were held in the largest university in China with Peking University, the territory of which is considered one of the most beautiful places in the world.
To get to the finals, teams must first qualify at their university, and then the regional round. In particular, in December last year, ITMO University was one of the four venues for the qualifying round in Russia and the CIS, in which more than 300 teams participated. According to the results of the semi-finals, 16 teams representing Northern Eurasia were selected according to the best results.
According to the rules of the competition, no more than three students under 25 years old can be in one team. Students who have twice participated in the final stage of the competition are not allowed to participate in the championship. In five hours, programmers must solve from 8 to 12 algorithmic problems, the conditions of which are written in English language. Teams write solutions in Java, C, C++, Kotlin and Python programming languages (the exact set for the final was approved by the rules this year) and send them to the testing server.
Programs are tested on in large numbers various input tests unknown to the participants. If the program gave an incorrect answer or did not meet the time or memory limits, then a message about this is sent to the team, after which the participants can send the corrected version. The problem is considered solved if the program gave correct answers on all tests. Unlike other Olympiads, partial solutions are not taken into account. The team that gets it right wins largest number tasks. If several teams solve the same number of problems, then their position in the ranking is determined by the penalty time.
Today, at 18:00 Moscow time, the finals of the world's most prestigious competition for programmers - ACM ICPC - will begin in Rapid City, USA. We invite everyone to see this event live (live broadcast will start at 17:00 Moscow time) and support the ITMO University team, one of the favorites of the championship. We will tell you about how teams from all over the world prepared for the finals, as well as about the predictions for victory, below.
Some facts
- Sports programming annually attracts more participants than Olympic Games– this year, 46,381 people from 103 countries take part in the ACM ICPC competitions, while 11,544 athletes participated in all stages of the Summer Olympics in Rio (4 times less).
- Interest in competitions is growing every year. According to Vladimir Parfyonov, Director of the Regional Semi-Final of the ACM ICPC Championship in Russia and North-East Europe, Dean of the Faculty of Information Technologies and Programming at ITMO University, in 2004, 8,000 programmers took part in the ACM ICPC World Championship (including regional qualifying stages), 2016 - already over 40,000.
- The position of the leaders of the championship has long been fixed for Russian universities - our teams have become the absolute champions of the ACM ICPC 11 times. Of these, 6 times the championship was won by ITMO University teams - and this is a world record (in 2017, ITMO University is fighting for the title of seven-time world champion).
- The number of participants from Russia has been high for many years: in 2004, 2,100 programmers from Russia took part in all stages of the championship, by 2016 their number had increased to 3,400.
- The format of the ACM ICPC championship is called not only one of the most successful, but also one of the most difficult: each team uses only one computer and must solve as many problems as possible in a short time. Because of this, the championship places increased demands not only on creativity, knowledge of algorithms and “materiel”, but also on the ability to distribute roles and work in a team.
I would say that it is possible to succeed in competitions up to a certain level, having only knowledge from the first category [knowledge of mathematics, algorithms, programming language]. However, knowledge from the second category [understanding the right tactics, skills for competent resource allocation] greatly simplifies life and works as a catalyst. As in any sport: there are physical skills, but there is knowledge of technology, psychology, and so on. You can only succeed at the expense of the first, but the second will work as a catalyst– Pavel Krotkov, a graduate of the Faculty of Information Technology and Programming at ITMO University, participant and organizer of many programming contests in Russia and abroad, including ACM ICPC NEERC
- By the way, since October last year, Pavel and his colleagues Maxim Buzdalov, ACM ICPC 2009 champion and Daria Yakovleva, who entered the top ten at the international programming competition Google Code Jam for Women in 2016, have been teaching the course “How to win in programming competitions: secrets of champions”, which ITMO University launched on the edX platform. We wrote about what tips champions give to beginners in sports programming here: and.
- The ITMO University team is also responsible for the online broadcast of the championship (of course, not athletes-programmers, but specialists in video broadcasting). While the participants of the championship fight for the championship title, the video team, analysts, director, director, designer, programmers and video editors strive to turn the ACM ICPC final into an event that will be interesting for people from all over the world to watch. By the way, this year we will organize broadcasting in Russian especially for Russian viewers. Read about how the team works, what hardware and software solutions are used during the broadcast, in this material.
Participant preparation
Before taking part in the finals, the teams are trained at a variety of preliminary training camps. One of these training stages is held annually at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Moscow Workshops ACM ICPC).The format of the workshops is quite tough: in 11 days of continuous training, the participating students solve at least 100 olympiad tasks. Also, within the framework of the training program, consultations with the teachers of the training camp and the study of lecture materials are provided.
Future winners do not neglect such training: in 2016, 8 out of 13 ACM ICPC winning teams participated in training camps. And the current Moscow Workshops ACM ICPC was attended by 170 students and trainers representing 19 countries and 44 universities. The possibility of remote participation allowed teams from the USA, Latvia, Romania, China and India to be trained by Russian specialists.
Predictions: who will win
According to Andrei Stankevich, team coach at ITMO University and a member of the organizing committee for the semi-finals of the World Championship in the countries of North-Eastern Europe, the following universities will be among the contenders for victory this year:- Russia: St. Petersburg State University, ITMO University and MIPT (three of the best teams in the North-Eastern Europe region)
- China: Xinhua University, Shanghai Transport University, Fudan University, Peking University
- USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Sweden: Royal Institute of Technology
“As the pre-final training camp at MIPT showed, this year the Chinese Xinhua University has a very strong team. It includes students who at one time as schoolchildren took absolute first places at the international Olympiad. However, our team managed to get past them twice in the training competition, so there are chances.Of the Russian teams, the teams from ITMO University, St. Petersburg State University and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology performed very well. Of the unexpected discoveries of the last training camp - a team from Australia (University of New South Wales) and a stronger than before team KTH from Stockholm. We can also note the strong teams from MIT and several other Chinese universities: Shanghai Transportation University, Fudan University from Beijing, Peking University.”
– Andrey Stankevich
Vladimir Parfyonov notes that this year the results of the Russian teams that made it to the final turned out to be expected: the leaders performed consistently well, but the composition of the finalist universities remained almost unchanged compared to last year:
Among the Russian finalists are old participants ([they] have reached the final stage before, but not in all years), since it is very difficult to prepare a team that goes to the final.If we talk about the region [North-Eastern Europe], then this season St Petersburg University, ITMO University and MIPT are the three strongest Russian teams, since MSU, for example, did not have a good season. Belarusian teams from other countries [of the region] can compete with us.
– Vladimir Parfenov
On May 24, Rapid City (USA) hosted the climax of the ACM ICPC-2017 World Programming Championship. The ITMO University team became the absolute champions, having solved 10 problems out of 12 faster and more competently than their rivals. Thus, the St. Petersburg university set a new record in the history of the contest: ITMO University teams became the winners of the ACM ICPC for the seventh time, which has not yet been achieved by any university in the world. The championship cup was raised over their heads by students of the Department of Computer Technologies Vladimir Smykalov, Ivan Belonogov and Ilya Zban. This year, 133 teams from all regions of the world participate in the finals of the most prestigious competition among programmers, the competitions have already been held for 41 times.
Awarding the ITMO University Team
The university team was able to correctly solve 10 tasks out of 12, spending the least amount of time on this. It was the time to solve problems and the smaller number of unsuccessful attempts to pass them that provided the team with the seventh ACM ICPC Cup. Other "golden" teams, which made up the four leaders of the contest, also solved ten problems each. Literally on the heels of the world champions came the team Warsaw University, former favorite of ACM ICPC-2017. In third position are programmers from Seoul national university. The St Petersburg University team finished fourth - last year's champion. The ITMO University team consists of students Faculty of Information Technologies and ProgrammingVladimir Smykalov(the first year of the master's program of the department of CT), Ivan Belonogov(fourth year undergraduate course of the Department of CT) and Ilya Zbanya(fourth year undergraduate course of the Department of CT). The head coach of the team was Associate Professor of the Department of Computer Technologies, Candidate of Technical Sciences Andrei Stankevich, which has prepared more than one generation of athletes-programmers. In 2016, he received the prestigious ACM ICPC Senior Coach Award for leading his coaches to the finals for 15 years.
“The competition went amazingly smoothly,- share experiences Ivan Belonogov. - In some problems, we intuitively relied on facts that we could not prove completely, and our instinct did not let us down. We managed to finish 10 tasks in actually four hours, and this gave a good margin of confidence. But only at the very end, when we passed the tenth task, I thought: “Okay, apparently, I can take the gold!”.
Other Russian teams also became winners: the MIPT team will leave with ACM ICPC "silver", and the Ural Federal University with "bronze" of the contest. In total, this year Russia was represented by 13 teams - one more than last year, including three from Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as from other cities: Saratov, Perm, Petrozavodsk, Novosibirsk, Samara, Tomsk and Yekaterinburg. Teams from the Russian Federation have been participating in the championship since 1993, and since 2000 they have won the competition 12 times, including this year.
The full table of results can be found at the link.
“All the teams included in the TOP-12 have been named in the lists of favorites more than once - there were no big surprises. Comparing with the previous year, A powerful breakthrough was shown by Asian universities: last year they got only two medals, and now - as many as seven. However, there are many strong teams in each region, and the competition is getting tougher.”, - comments the mentor of the ITMO University team Andrei Stankevich.
The last hour of the competition, the coach admitted, was no less exciting for him than for his wards.
“After the leaderboard is frozen, there is no way for the guys to show the coach if the problem is passed, but this time, seeing the image from the screen of their computer during the broadcast, I noticed that after submitting the last problem, G, they quickly switched to the results page, and thought: It means everything is fine, passed. It was not a task that should have been abandoned if the answer was wrong.”, - the coach shares.
Traditionally, like this year, the contest was held for five hours. During this time, participants must solve practice-oriented tasks. The peculiarity of the competition is that teams of three people sit in front of one computer. Therefore, in addition to logic and the ability to work under pressure, they must demonstrate the skills of team play and correct distribution roles. In order to solve some problems, only accuracy and attentiveness are enough, the organizers of the championship note. For other tasks, in-depth knowledge of various algorithms is required. The result of the team's work is most often some kind of software that meets the set conditions. Problems are checked automatically according to the tests, which are prepared in advance by the jury, the solutions are checked in real time. The completeness and speed of the task, as well as the number of attempts that the team made in solving a particular task, are taken into account. Not always teams have time to cope with everyone. Such stringent conditions are real life: after all, the client can simply refuse the services of a programmer if the second one wastes time and resources of the first one.
To qualify for the ACM ICPC finals, one had to first pass a local selection at their own university. Usually more than 300 thousand people participate in these events. Then they pass, in which leaders worthy of the final are determined. The ICPC champions receive the World Championship Cup and a solid cash prize, which this year is $15,000. The rest of the winning teams also do not leave without financial reward.
The International Collegiate Programming Contest has been held annually since 1977 under the auspices of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM, headquartered in New York). This year the ACM ICPC again set a new record for the number of participants. In total, 46,381 students from almost three thousand universities participated in the regional qualifying rounds. Last year, a little over 40,000 programmers competed during the championship. According to the statistics of the organizers of the event, the number of participants has increased by 2000% since 1997, the year when the championship began to be supported by IBM.
Sergey Tushin, Deputy Head of Administration of Yekaterinburg for the organization of significant national and international events:
– Hosting the World Programming Championship did not become stressful for Yekaterinburg, as the entire infrastructure was adapted to the arrival of such a large number of guests. Holding such an event is an indicator of the prestige of the university and recognition of the level of Ural science. As well as the opportunity to fix the level of development of the IT sector in our region and give it a new impetus to move forward.
Marwan Naggar (Marwan Naggar), member of team No. 10, student at Cairo University (Cairo University), Egypt (participating for the first time):
– This is the first time I participate in such a large-scale and grandiose world programming competition, so to be aware of myself as a part of it is fantastic. The fact that you see these incredible guys from all over the world in one place is in itself inspiring to fight. The organization of the event is wonderful. We were well received, helped to get settled, accompanied everywhere. It should be noted that our coach needs special attention, as he is a person with handicapped, and we are very glad that there were no problems with this. We haven't had a chance to see Yekaterinburg properly yet because of the tight schedule, but at first glance it seemed very beautiful to me, I liked the local architecture.
Igor Levitin, Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation:
“It is important for us to hold such an event in the city. I don’t know yet who won, but I’m sure that they won in a fair fight and the best won.
In Russia, very great importance educational programs and the establishment of universities. IT programs at our universities are the key to high-quality engineering education in the Russian Federation. Today, engineering education is one of the most important tasks in educational system. No technical new breakthrough solutions are unthinkable without IT technologies.
Evgeny Kuyvashev, Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region:
– This event allows us to model our life a little bit ahead. And, in many ways, the participants of today's competitions after a while will determine our lives. Because IT-technologies move our lives forward and have penetrated into the industry and in general into all the industries that surround us. IT technologies make the distance from an idea to its implementation very short and fast. Programmers! You will move our life, our fast and changing world forward.
Bill Poucher, Executive Director of ChampionshipsACM ICPC, professor at Baylor University:
– The ACM ICPC Championship is a great opportunity for students from all over the world to get together and share valuable experience. I am excited to see how young people use the knowledge gained during the competition to further their chosen academic and career path as members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The World Programming Championship is held in order to grow more and more perfect generations of programmers who will be able to solve technical problems at a higher level. The ICPC winners of previous years from Russia are the developers of VKontakte, Yandex, Mail.ru and SKB Kontur. The 2014 championship was the most massive in the history of the ICPC: 122 teams from all over the world, and they are already at the top. They are the stars of the universe called "ICPC-2014"! They are the future, they are the 22nd century!
Viktor Koksharov, rector of the Ural federal university:
- I hope that the stay of the championship participants in Yekaterinburg was unforgettable: for this we did a lot, almost unbelievable. We even changed the weather: last week there was a storm, heavy rain and thunderstorms, and today it's sunny, you smile, and everything is fine. That's what science has come to! Everything is all right with her in the Ural Federal: information technology, computer science, mathematics - many students of our university specialize in this, as well as members of the teams that have gathered here today. I wish you all good luck, good health and unforgettable impressions from Yekaterinburg and these competitions!
Alan Azaguri, Head of IBM Software Group Technical Strategy, Member of the IBM Academy of Technology and Head of the ACM ICPC Sponsorship Program:
– As one of the world's leading technology companies, IBM understands the importance of helping and motivating students on their journey to learning the latest achievements technological progress. Each year ACM ICPC brings together the world's best student programmers and gives them the opportunity to solve problems from real world. We believe that these students are the future leaders of our industry, and we want to contribute to their development and preparation for future work. We hope that the winners will help us build a truly intelligent planet.
Alexander Kuprin, participant of the World Programming ChampionshipACM ICPC 2014, high school Economics, Moscow:
- According to the rules of the World Programming Championship, you can participate in the competition only twice. Here is my second time. The first was in 2011 in Orlando. Then for us the main task was - at least to get to the final. We believe that this has already been an achievement. I spoke on behalf of the Oryol State technical university. First time experience is always different. There were interesting events, we were taken to Sea World - a large amusement park. In the evening after the competition, we went to the Universal film studio. The working day had just ended there, and especially for us, the workers stayed to conduct a tour. They showed the village of Hogsmeade from Harry Potter and other things related to the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and so on. And it's still good here too. They painted graffiti, the master classes were interesting. The parallel program, which the organizers are conducting, is interesting and unusual in its own way.
Dmitry Bugrov,director of ACM ICPC 2014 in Yekaterinburg,First Vice-Rector of UrFU:
– Today, the Information Technology industry is at the forefront and is developing very rapidly. Why IT people are at the head of progress? Because after a certain number of years, it is they who will rule the world, perhaps invisibly through mobile applications, computer programs and much more, which makes our life unlike the life of our ancestors, and the life of our children will make it different from our lives. The most important thing is that this industry constantly needs to be recharged, it does not tolerate stagnation, it constantly needs new brains. Only this ensures its development. The world develops because minds develop.
Ekaterina Korkh, captain of the Arrriva KVN team, student of the Ural State Forest Engineering University:
- Our team was invited to the KVN Cup of the Student Activity Program within the framework of ACM ICPC 2014 by UrFU graduates - the KVN team "Voices". We decided that this is a wonderful summer event that is worth participating in. It's great that such a bright event as KVN is taking place within the framework of the World Programming Championship.
The preparation is going great, we really like the editors and organizers - Maxim Basavin and Ekaterina Vlasyuk. Good guys with constructive criticism, positive emotions and a pleasure to work with. The main thing for us is that the audience should appreciate our performance. Indeed, in our program there is a part with an emphasis on the Championship. A lot of things are new for us, including the stage: huge and, as far as I understand, without any backstage. But KVN workers are people who are ready to adapt to any conditions. We even performed outside in the rain once, so it's not scary.
In the era of information technology, computers, iPhones, robots and everything that is smarter than me, such an event is very relevant. To be inside all this, learn some secrets at master classes and just have a great time, especially for free - it's generally cool!
Thies Kinkhorst, Member of the Organizing CommitteeACM ICPC 2014:
- I help the judges in the organization, and this is my third world championship. What surprised me in Yekaterinburg is the number of volunteers who are always ready to help. When we arrived at the airport at 5 am and were greeted by three volunteers asking “Can we help?” it was really cool! I think volunteers are the biggest plus in organizing this year's championship.
Vlad Borovkov, member of the organizing committee "Territories of unique entertainment":
– Our main motto is to make it not boring. We wanted to show the guests that programming and cybernetics in general is interesting and spectacular. It's nice that they believed in us and entrusted us with holding an event for the whole city.
Olga Nikolenko, volunteerACM ICPC 2014, UrFU student:
“The volunteers had a very warm, family atmosphere. If there was any problem situation and I needed help, I was sure that other guys would provide it to me. Naturally, sometimes there were some incidents, but the work of the volunteers themselves was impeccable, most of them gave their best. After all, these people are enthusiasts, and when a person is interested in what he does, it always turns out great. In exchange, we received so many emotions that they will be enough for the whole summer! Volunteers were in hotels, at the airport, and there were "buddies" - accompanying people. But most of the time we spent with our wards teams. Such events are very useful for the city and the university, but are especially important for people from different countries learned to find a common language.
