“We are the champions”: programming world champions from Russia “We are the champions”: programming world champions from Russia. Why and what for? Pavel Mavrin, Fedor Tsarev, Maxim Buzdalov St. Petersburg National Research University of IT, Mechanics and Optics Computer Technologies Department European Conference of Young Presidents Organization (http://www.ypo.org/) Moscow, 22.09.2012, Ritz-Carlton Hotel

Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC) Since 1979, sponsored by IBM Became world championship in early 90-s Team = 3 students + 1 computer Over 10000 teams – 2200 universities – 85 countries Multi-tiered competition: 260 Quarterfinals 30 Semifinals World Finals (112 teams) Medals are given to top 12 teams – 4 gold medals, 4 silver medals and 4 bronze medals 5 semifinals and 2 finals per student at most World Finals 2013 will be hosted by University ITMO

Problem Example Contest lasts for 5 hours Problem set: 10-12 problems Problem “Coffee Central” from ACM ICPC World Finals 2011 Coffee shops are located at some of the intersections

Problem Example A person is willing to walk at most d blocks for the morning coffee Example: d = 2 Write the program to find the location from which you can reach the maximal number of coffee shops for the morning coffee

Problem Example Solution for the example – from best location you can reach 3 coffee shops

Russian teams on World Finals World champions: 2000 – St Petersburg SU 2001 – St Petersburg SU 2004 – University ITMO 2006 – Saratov SU 2008 – University ITMO 2009 – University ITMO 2012 – University ITMO Much more gold medals

2004, Prague, Czech Republic University ITMO – 1-st place MIT – 5-th place Caltech – 7-th place Harvard – 9-th place

2004 World Champions

World champions 2004 and President of Russia Vladimir Putin

2008, Banff, Canada University ITMO – 1-st place MIT – 2-nd place Tsinghua (China) – 6-th place Stanford – 7-th place All 11 Russian teams are among top 30 teams of the world

World champions 2008 and St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matvienko

2009, Stockholm, Sweden University ITMO – 1-st place Tsinghua – 2-nd place Oxford – 5-th place MIT – 7-th place Carnegie Mellon – 8-th place

World Champions 2009

World Champions 2009 with President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev

2012, Warsaw, Poland University ITMO – 1-st place Harvard – 7-th place University of Tokyo – 11-th place

World Champions 2012

World Champions 2012 and President of Russia Vladimir Putin

Why University ITMO is four times World Champion? Computer Technologies Department was founded by Vladimir Vasiliev (now – rector) and Vladimir Parfenov (now – dean of the IT & Programming faculty) in 1991 Goal: To find high school students performing best in mathematics, physics and informatics To train them to be high-class software engineers Competition-based education Best coach in the world – Andrew Stankevich Traditions

Secrets of Success Pavel Mavrin – don’t stop when you lose Fedor Tsarev – find a good team Maxim Buzdalov – do not rest on laurels

What happens after?

How business helps our department Best students are invited to work in the university after graduating Save the intellectual environment and traditions Teach students Do research IT companies sponsor them directly Save The Best initiative: savethebest.ru Mail.Ru Group, Yandex, Yota, Transas, JetBrains, Speech Technology Center, eVelopers, DEVINO Telecom

Cooperation with ETH Zurich 21 Nobel Prizes Never advanced to ACM ICPC World Finals before 2011 University ITMO: Participates in ACM ICPC World Finals since 1995 Four times ACM ICPC World Champions World Champions from University ITMO regularly come to ETH Zurich for trainings Result – ETH Zurich team advanced to World Finals for the first time in the history Establishment of Software Engineering and Verification Chair in University ITMO (head – Prof. Bertrand Meyer) Davos Informatics camps for high-school students

Plans for the future Personal careers – a lot of opportunities For the university – Gennady Korotkevich, programming prodigy from Belarus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gennady_Korotkevich 5 gold medals at International Olympiad in Informatics for high-school students, 3 absolute first places Highest rated coder at Codeforces and TopCoder Now – first-year student of University ITMO Hope to win two more World Championships 

Questions? Contact information: pavel.mavrin@gmail.com fedor.tsarev@gmail.com mbuzdalov@gmail.com St. Petersburg National Research University of IT, Mechanics and Optics Computer Technologies Department Russia, St. Petersburg, Kronverksky pr. 49

Training for ACM ICPC in University ITMO http://neerc.ifmo.ru/trains Coach – Andrew Stankevich President of Russia Award in the area of education (2003), Award for Great Contribution to Spreading ACM ICPC in Europe (2004) Best Coach Award (2009) Five hour trainings two times a week About 70% of first and second year students of Computer Technologies Department take part in trainings Special training camps in winter and summer in Petrozavodsk

Russian Olympiads in Informatics for high-school students All-Russia center for Olympiads in Informatics at Computer Technologies Department Individual Olympiad (ROI, IOI-style, since 1989) Team Olympiad (ICPC-style, http://neerc.ifmo.ru/school, since 2000) Internet Olympiads (http://neerc.ifmo.ru/school/io): Team (ICPC-style, since 2005) Basic level Advanced level Individual (IOI-style) Basic level (since 2009) Advanced level (since 2006) CD “Programming with champions!” (yet – only in Russian) Basic level of Internet Olympiads 50 problems with solutions Personal testing system

Research at Computer Technologies Department Bioinformatics Algorithms for analyzing large amounts of genomic data Genome assembly algorithms Spin-off company “Cloud Genomics” Software Engineering Software verification Automated programming using artificial intelligence and machine learning