Battle of the brains
The Northwestern European Regional Programming Contest (NWERC) 2011 is held at Jacobs University from November 25 to 27.
November 22, 2011The competition pits 70 teams made up of three university students each against eight or more complex, real-world problems, with a grueling five-hour deadline.
This year's NWERC draws students from 43 leading colleges and universities throughout the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Germany - among them Cambridge University, Oxford University, Trinity College Dublin, University of Aarhus, University of Eindhoven, University of Oslo and TU Munich (for a complete list please check here).
In the past year more than 8000 teams from 2070 universities from 88 countries competed in regional heats such as NWERC.
Huddled around a single computer, competitors race against the clock in a battle of logic, strategy and mental endurance. Teammates collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds, and build software systems that solve the problems under the intense scrutiny of expert judges.
Dr. Heinrich Stamerjohanns, Jacobs University lecturer in Computer Science and NWERC organizer says: “For a well-versed computer science student, some of the problems require precision only. Others require a knowledge and understanding of advanced algorithms.”
NWERC 2011 is integrated in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC). The regional winners will advance to the ACM Programming Contest World Finals to be held in Warsaw (Poland) in 2012, where they will compete against other student teams from regional contests that have taken place on all continents.
Hosted by the University of Warsaw the finals will be on from May 14 to 18. 105 teams are expected to take part in the finals representing the best of the great universities from across the globe.
About ACM ICPC Contest
The contest traces its roots to a competition held at Texas A&M in 1970 hosted by the Alpha Chapter of the UPE Computer Science Honor Society. It has since evolved into a two-tiered competition among teams of students representing institutions of higher education. Teams first compete in regional contests held around the world from September to November each year. The winning team from each regional contest qualifies to advance to the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals, usually held the following March to mid-April. Additional high-ranking teams may be invited to the World Finals as wild card teams. The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs, and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. Quite simply, it is the oldest, largest, and most prestigious programming contest in the world.
More info: http://cm.baylor.edu/welcome.icpc
For more information on NWERC please contact
Dr. Heinrich Stamerjohanns | Jacobs University Lecturer in Computer Science
Tel. +49 421 200 3589 | h.stamerjohanns@jacobs-university.de
