The Global Mind in Ekaterinburg

08:49, February 15, 2013

Ural Federal University is going to host the 2014 World Finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

Ural Federal University (UrFU) is ready to host the ACM-ICPC World Finals in 2014, although previously it was announced that it would happen in 2016.  The Letter of Agreement has been signed today by the UrFU Rector Viktor Koksharov and the ICPC Executive Deputy Director Jeff Donahoo.

"Thanks to the support of the city and regional government, the University has managed to gain the right to host the most significant IT-event in the world", Viktor Koksharov says.  "For us it is an important step which will strengthen the authority of universities and the role they play in training top-class specialists in the sphere of information technologies".

The Ural capital is ready to accept the guests – over 1,000 students from 100 leading universities in the IT-sphere: the city administration, which supported UrFU's bid together with the regional authorities, have confirmed that they are ready to support the Contest and welcome the guests and participants of the ACM-ICPC World Finals.  The Framework Cooperation Agreement of the University, city administration, the organizing committee and hotels of Ekaterinburg has been signed on Wednesday, 13^th February.

Thus, the academic community of Ekaterinburg once again has demonstrated its willingness to host large-scale international events, including the ACM-ICPC.  For the city authorities it is going to be a great experience which will be useful for preparing for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the World Expo 2020 that Ekaterinburg is likely to host as well.  And the slogan put forward for the World Expo 2020 - "Global Mind" - sounds particularly up-to-date.

"For the period of 28 June - 3 July, 2014, Ekaterinburg will become the world IT-capital, the place where all the great minds will be concentrated - those who are still learning and those who are going to determine our life through computers, Smartphone and other electronic gadgets in the nearest future", comments the UrFU First Vice-Rector Dmitry Bugrov. "Undoubtedly, we put high hopes on our programmers. We are sure that the UrFU team led by Magaz Asanov, the Director of the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, will present themselves well at the 2014 World Finals".

In May 2012, at the  ACM-ICPC World Finals in Warsaw, the UrFU Rector presented the bid to host the contest in Ekaterinburg.  In July 2012, Ural Federal University, the government of Sverdlovsk Region and the Ekaterinburg City administration agreed to co-operate in the promotion of ACM-ICPC World Finals in Ekaterinburg. The relevant Cooperation Agreement was signed by the UrFU Rector Viktor Koksharov, the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuyvashev and the Head of Ekaterinburg City Administration Alexander Yakob.

It is important that in summer 2013 the World Finals will for the first time be held in Russia - in St.Petersburg, where it will be hosted by the current World Champion, St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO).

The ACM  International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) has been held since 1977. It operates under the auspices of the Association for Computing Machinery (USA). After over 25 years of its history, the Contest has developed the following set of rules: students compete in teams of three people sharing one computer. Contestants have five hours to solve as many problems as they can. If the score is equal, the winner is the team who spent less time.

The Contest includes three rounds: quarter-finals (local), semi-finals (regional) and finals.  The leading regional teams get through to the final round and win the champion title as well as the title of champions for various regions - Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, Pacific Region, Africa and Middle East.  For the first time Russian teams took part in the Contest in 1993-1994, when a new region - Eastern-European - was introduced.