Prince of Songkla University (PSU) Phuket Campus will be hosting the 40th edition of the international event from May 15-20, though the competition itself will be held at the Saphan Hin Sports Complex.
ACM-ICPC is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world, sponsored by IBM.
“The Programming Contest is held every year, with each country taking part holding their own computer-programming competition with university students as contestants,” explained PSU Director Prof Chusak Limsakul.
“This year, more than 40,000 people competed at the regional levels on each continent. In total, more than 300,000 people comprising students from more than 2,500 universities around the world have taken part in this year’s global competition in order for a chance to be in the final in Thailand.”
The contest requires students to write a new computer programme in order to solve logic problems. In order to do so, they must overcome complex problems of programming languages, including C++ and JAVA.
The winning team will go home with the World Cup Championship trophy and $16,500 cash (B545,000), Prof Chusak added.
More than 1,300 college students from all over the world are expected to compete in the finals in Phuket, together forming 128 teams representing 40 countries, added PSU Deputy Director Prof Puwadon Butrat.
“We will provide accommodation for all 128 teams that will be joining the event. Team FEDEX from the Prince of Songkla University and team CUCP Meow Meow 3 from Chulalongkorn University will be representing Thailand in this competition,” he said.
The Prince of Songkla University has been preparing to host this event for over a year, noted Prof Chusak.
“The event is being held in Phuket in order to develop the skills of Thai IT professionals and to inspire young Thais to gain an interest in the field of programming. This event in particular will help government policy on developing human resources for the future, especially in the field of computing and IT.
“PSU has been involved in organising this event on both the local and regional levels since 2009. The ACM-ICPC is held every year, but this is the first time that Thailand – or anywhere in Southeast Asia – has hosted the event,” he added.
Prof Chusak explained that the move for Phuket to host the finals started in 2013, when he attended the ACM ICPC World Finals in Russia. “That is where it was proposed that the PSU, and hence Thailand, host the event,” he said.
“In order for us to host this event, we received support from the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa), the Ministry of Information and Technology, Telecom Public Company Limited (CAT) as well as the Phuket Provincial Office and Phuket City Municipality,” he added.
Although the event’s formal schedule begins on Sunday (May 15), the official opening ceremony will be held on Tuesday (May 17), explained Prof Puwadon.
“The official opening of the event will be held at the Wang Iyara theatre at Phuket FantaSea and the practice session for the competition will be held at the Saphan Hin Sports Complex on May 18,” Prof Puwadon said.
The actual competition will be at the Saphan Hin Sports Complex on May 19. This will be broadcast live online from 9am-3pm at icpclive.com and icpc2016.in.th, he added.
For more information and the full schedule of the competition, visit icpc.baylor.edu and select “World Finals”.