Battle of the Brains

If you’d like to get involved or compete in the fall Regionals contest for next year’s World Finals, visit the “Regionals” section of the ACM-ICPC web site.

You’ll see links for eligibility, how to get involved, hosting a regional and creating a regional.

To help you practice, check out past problem sets on the history page of the web site. Depending on interest over the summer, we may post a few problems on the Battle of the Brains podcast site. So, keep coming back!

The public relations team from IBM, University of Alberta and the ICPC did a great job sharing the Battle of the Brains event with the world through the media. Here a few clips worth checking out:

• Canadian vlogger and freelancer for the Edmonton Journal
• Canada’s GlobalTV
• Voice of America’s radio program
• Chronicle of Higher Education

If you see a story you’d like to share, feel free to post a link to the comments section.

This ICPC World Finals was extremely competitive. The questions were harder, but this year’s students were quite ready for the challenge. It took eight correct answers to claim victory. Congratulations to St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics for taking the trophy. But the rest of the competitors should not hang their head. Given how well everyone performed this year, we expect an equally promising group of finalists next year.

IBM looks forward to the 2008-2009 Regional competition. For those interested in learning more about the Regionals phase, please visit the ICPC web site for more information. To those returning next year or starting their career path, we look forward to seeing you again soon.

On to Stockholm, Sweden!

Battle of the Brains features IBM host Cheryl Morris interviewing two important people closely involved in the IBM sponsorship - Katharine Frase, Vice President of Technical and Business Strategy, IBM Software Group, and IBM executive for the ACM sponsorship, and Margaret Ashida, Director, Talent.

A very lively discussion, the interview offered a preview on this year’s IBM Tech Trek, which will focus on Web 2.0 and the future of the social networking industry. They also offer their perspective on the value of the competition and how students leverage the contest to kick off a career path.

The IBM Tech Trek will be located in the Alberta / New Brunswick Room of the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel on Monday, April 7 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Katharine and Margaret also worked together on an article that published in the fall 2007 issue of Workforce Diversity: For Engineering and IT Professionals. They discussed IBM’s initiatives to help broaden and strengthen how the company encourages and invites more creative and smart students into the information technology field.

Keep coming back - We may have one more podcast posted ahead of World Finals weekend.

We look forward to seeing you in Banff! Have a safe trip!

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As we do every year, we engage press from around the world and talk with them about the World Finals. We’ve seen a lot of interest and enthusiasm over the years.

We greatly appreciate coaches and students taking the time to talk with their local TV, radio and newspaper about their experience. Your dedication helps reinforce the great strength of this contest. Plus, it helps the average person understand what a “real world” problem really looks like from an IT perspective. Check out the press release at on the IBM Contest page.

In this month’s Battle of the Brains podcast, IBM’s Pasha Ray talks with two distinguished guests from the World Finals host school, University of Alberta — long-time World Finals team coach Professor Piotr Rudnicki and the school’s Communications and Marketing Coordinator, Sheryl Mayko.

Coach Rudnicki sheds some light on his experience coaching the U of A team over the last 30 years, reflecting on how he readies students for not only the contest but for life after college. Mayko offers insight about what she sees as the importance of this competition and how the contest opens doors for students meeting potential employers, such as IBM.

In our next podcast, we’ll hear from Katherine Frase, IBM executive for the ICPC and leader of the “Made in IBM Labs” initiative, and Margaret Ashida, Director, Talent - IBM Software Group to offer their perspective on how the contest impacts the strength of students to future employers.

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Battle of the Brains podcast host Mark Guan sits down with Josh Woods, IBM Software Engineer and 2003 World Finals contestant. Josh highlights strategies that helped his team do well, what it was like after college looking for a job, how he came to join IBM and what he’s doing now.

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With the World Finals firmly in site, IBM Sponsorship Executive Doug Heintzman highlights some the 100 teams representing 33 countries competing this year’s Battle of the Brains. He also shared some insight into some of the cool things past contestants have accomplished at IBM and how this contest impacts students. We know a lot of contestants are thinking about their career after college. So, for a future podcast, we plan to invite one or two former contestants to offer tips about what to expect at the World Finals and beyond.

Also, for a future podcast, IBM is considering an interview with a team coach. If you have a coach you’d like to suggest, please email a 50-word description explaining how your coach helped bring out the best in you. Make sure you ask your coach if he or she is okay with the nomination before sending it in.

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Once again, we interviewed Doug Heintzman, IBM’s Sponsorship Executive. He’s been involved with the competition for a number of years. So, he makes a great fit for these updates. As we move ahead in 2008, we may try to sprinkle in a team coach or two or another IBM executive who talk more about a particular aspect of the contest. But Doug will be our main guy.

In the December podcast, Doug offers updates some of the early finalists for the World Finals. He also provided more detail about what the competition works so hard to accomplish, particularly highlighting the use of open source software and offered examples of some of the ‘real world’ problems students are charged with solving.

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In September, we interviewed Doug Heintzman, IBM’s Sponsorship Executive, to discuss this year’s competition and help kick-off the Regionals competition. He provided some good background on IBM’s perspective on the competition and how the company’s philosophy fits with the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest’s goals to help groom the next great innovators.

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