Rutgers Students to Compete in World Finals of International Collegiate Computer Programming Contest

WHEN: March 12-16, 2007

WHERE: Tokyo, Japan

BACKGROUND: A team of three computer programmers from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, will compete in the world finals of the International Collegiate Programming Contest. The Rutgers team is one of 88 from around the world and 20 from the United States to participate in this years event.

The Rutgers team qualified for the world finals by winning first place in last Octobers New York regional competition, besting teams from Columbia, Cornell, NYU, Princeton, RPI, SUNY-Stony Brook and Yale. The grueling regional competition pitted teams from 26 colleges and universities against each other to see who could solve up to nine complex programming tasks in five hours. In Tokyo, the finalists will be challenged to solve highly complex, real-world problems representing a semesters worth of curriculum, such as ensuring secure business transactions over the Internet or designing global positioning system navigation programs.

Members of the Rutgers team are Joseph Crobak of Mechanicsburg, Pa.; Adam Gashlin of Howell, N.J.; and Marla Slusky of Edison, N.J. The team coaches are graduate students Bin Tian and Lei Wang, the faculty sponsor is Mario Szegedy, and the corporate sponsor is Ask.com.

Organizers describe the annual competition as the worlds oldest, largest and most prestigious programming contest, with roots extending back to 1970 at Texas A&M. Since that time, it has grown to encompass more than 6,000 teams from 1,756 universities around the world.

Contact: Carl Blesch
732-932-7084, ext. 616
E-mail: cblesch@ur.rutgers.edu

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