Young Programmers at the ACM ICPC, Dhaka Regional Site Event 2015

On November 14, the award ceremony for the 'ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest - Dhaka Regional Site Event 2015' was held at North South University's new auditorium. This year, 122 teams from 53 universities and institutions were competing in the Dhaka rounds for ACM ICPC, the world's most prestigious programming contest. NSU was hosting the event for the 12th time.

The participants were listening intently among the crowd, along with the excited organisers, volunteers, faculty members and administration representatives. The chief guest for the event was Dr. Ahsan Habib Mansur, Executive Director, Policy Research Institute, Bangladesh, while Professor Dr. Gour Gobinda Goswami, Vice Chancellor In-Charge, NSU, acted as the session chair.

Professor Dr. Abul L Haque, Director, ACM ICPC 2015, Dhaka Site, began the event with a speech that explained to the general audience that from these 122 brilliant teams, two would get the ticket to participate in the World Finals scheduled to be hosted in May 2016 in Phuket, Thailand. Next, Dr. Sirajul Islam, Dean, Department of Engineering and Physical Sciences, talked about the importance of IT professionals and engineers in the country and how innovation must be pushed to its limits. 

Chief guest, Dr. Mansur, greatly commended the participants of this year's event, stating that these participants and their peers will someday shape the future of the world, while minimising the gap between developed and developing countries. While there has been a significant progress in Bangladesh's IT sector, he emphasised that these are early days and the future generation must go ahead with the spirit of competition. Session chair, Professor Dr. Goswami, thanked everyone involved who worked tirelessly for making the event successful, and ended his speech hoping that NSU will soon be hosting the World Finals thanks to its global standard infrastructure.

Shahriar Manzoor, judging director, discussed and analysed this year's problems with a touch of humour while crediting everyone who worked hard for setting the problems and solutions. Next, Dr. Syed Akhter Hossain, chief judge, ACM ICPC 2015 Dhaka, announced the names of all the teams that made the ranks. Tokens of felicitations were handed out to several teams depending upon their problem solving capabilities. Dr. Syed thanked CodeMarshal, this year's online platform for the event. Finally, the winners were announced. JU O(N^3) grabbed the first position, while SUST DownToTheWire became second. NSU BugLovers secured the third position. The top two teams qualified for the World Finals in 2016.

Participants were then taken to Jamuna Future Park for an entertaining evening that involved games, movies and dinner.

Previously, on November 13, the inauguration ceremony was headed by the VC IC, Dr. Goswami. Professor Dr. Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, Vice Chancellor, University of Asia Pacific, was the chief guest. Professor Dr. Abul L Haque; Professor Dr. Sirajul Islam; Dr. K.M.A. Salam; and Dr. Shazzad Hossain made their respective speeches to wish the best to the contestants.