Open Ural Programming Championship finished at UrFU

16:13, May 12, 2012

18 universities from all over Russia participate in the 16th Open Ural Programming Championship at UrFU

As in the previous years, the best of students programming teams of Russia gathered in Ekaterinburg in the last days of April. On April, 28, representatives of 13 Russian cities – Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Samara, Volgograd, Barnaul, Orenburg, Izhevsk, Magnitogorsk, Perm, Tyumen, Ufa and Chelyabinsk – met at the Ural Federal University (UrFU). In total, 18 universities and 40 teams took part in the Open Ural Championship.

The whole event was organized by the UrFU Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science (IMCS). The championship lasted for 3 days and consisted of two tours. A big brass teapot was the prize for the winners of the gaming tour, while more familiar champions’ cup was waiting for those, who finished first in the main tour.

Among the championship participants were 6 Russian teams which qualified for ACM-ICPC World Finals in Warsaw. One of these teams, Ural FU Orange, represents Ural University with UrFU IMCS students Egor Schelkonogov, Olga Soboleva and Oleg Dolgorukov in the squad. Along with the team, a delegation of Sverdlovsk region set for Warsaw to present an application to host ACM-ICPC World Finals 2016 in Russia. This idea was born among the students of IMCS, and was supported by the university, Administration of Ekaterinburg and Government of Sverdlovsk Region. The ACM-ICPC World Finals, if hosted in Ekaterinburg, would attract about a thousand guests from all continents of the Earth.

– ACM-ICPC World Finals-2016 in Ekaterinburg would be a great opportunity to rehearse the other events of global importance which, possibly, will be held in Ekaterinburg in 2018 and 2020; namely, World Football Cup Finals and EXPO international exhibition, - said First Vice-Rector of UrFU, Dmitry Bugrov.

Together with the Rector of Ural University, Viktor Koksharov, Dmitry Burgov will be presenting UrFU in Warsaw, where the meeting with the board of ACM-ICPC World Finals is arranged for May, 13. Dmitry Bugrov stressed that it is important to present not only infrastructural possibilities of the city but also the existence of the corresponding IT environment. No doubt such environment exists in Ural University, which accumulated great experience in IT training and research. In general, one can say that Ural University, being a pioneer in organizing programming contests’ in Russia, made a great contribution into the development of IT education in the country.

Contests and competitions  

The Ural University organizes a lot of IT contests and tournaments for universities and secondary schools. The first major Ural contest in ACM rules, the Open Ural Championship, was held in 1997 by UrFU IMCS. It was one of the very first Russian contests held under the international rules. In 1998, the Open Ural Championship acquired the status of ACM-ICPC NEERC Quarterfinals.

Thus, one of the first ACM-ICPC Quarterfinals in the world (and definitely the first in Russia) was held in Ekaterinburg. The author of this idea was the director of IMCS Department of Mathematics, Mechanics and Computers Sciences, Magaz Asanov. Following the experience of UrFU, the quarterfinals were introduced in the other regions of Russia. In 2006, the Open Ural Championship and the ACM-ICPC NEERC Quarterfinals were parted due to the change of ACM-ICPC rules. Thus, 2 contests emerged instead of just one. Since 2006, Open Ural Championship is an independent competition with the permanently increasing number of participants.

Moreover, since 2000 UrFU IMCS organizes the Open UrFU Championship where UrFU’s own teams are competing. The Individual UrFU Championship, which is held on the Russia’s largest programming contests’ archive, acm.timus.ru, acquired global scale: in 2011, there were more than 500 participants from 29 countries. In 2012 UrFU will participate in its 11th ACM-ICPC World Finals. This is the 4th result in Russia, as only Moscow University, Saint-Petersburg University and Saint-Petersburg University ITMO participated in World Finals more times. Three times (in 2001, 2010, and 2011) UrFU IMCS team won bronze medals of ACM-ICPC World Finals.

Today, the UrFU finalists are successful IT specialists who contribute greatly into the development of programming contests in Ural. Those, who went through the programming contests and tournaments, later work in Microsoft, Google or Yandex, both in Russia and abroad. As Magaz Asanov stresses: ‘We are training good specialists. He, who participate in the contests, already becomes a professional. The employers are hunting after such professionals. The doors of all companies of the world are opened wide for them’.