GUST wins first place in the Gulf Programming Contest
51 teams from 18 universities across the GCC participate in the event
KUWAIT CITY, March 26: Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) announced this week that the seventh Gulf Programming Contest (GPC), took place on its campus on March 22 and 23. The competition was under the patronage of the Private Universities Council and was attended by Professor Waleed Murad Al-Kandari, Undersecretary General for Information and Research. It was organized by the Computer Science Department at GUST, sponsored by That Al Salasil, and hosted 51 teams from across the GCC.
PUC Undersecretary General for Information and Research, Professor Waleed Murad Al-Kandari, said, “The Private Universities Council has always worked to support all academic efforts for students in private universities in all their specialties. Our support for this event is aligned with that goal. This competition instills many qualities and values which we support for our youth including increasing their knowledge, pushing creative thinking, gaining practical experience, increasing competitiveness, and stimulating performance.”
This year, the winning team was ‘Bug: :Life’ from Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait. In second place, was ‘JavaMatics’ from the Arab Open University in Kuwait, and taking third place was ‘KFU_Male’ from King Faisal University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Award
GUST’s winning team members Karim K. Al-Maghraby, Meshel A. ALKhrainej, Amr E. Ahmed and their coach, Fadi Deeb, also won three other prestigious awards at the contest including the Solid Programmers Award for solving the maximum number of questions from the first attempt, Stealthy Programmers Award for being the first team to solve a question in the blind hour, and the Steadfast Guru Programmers Award for submitting the last correct solution to a problem.
The GPC also has an unofficial category in which GUST’s ‘e-LEMON-ators’ team won top position. The team includes students Ziad Tariq Muhammad, Saoud Al-roomi, Ebraheem AlMuaili, and their coach, Fadi Deeb.
The Gulf Programming Contest provided an opportunity for university students from around the region majoring in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Management Information Systems, or any IT related subjects to display their abilities in programming and problem solving. The teams were given eight to ten programming problems to be solved using one PC only. Participating in this contest gives the students the opportunity to prepare for the Arab Collegiate Programming Contest (ACPC), a qualifying round to the Association for Computer Machinery — International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC) World Finals. Many contestants who qualified to the regional and world programming contests are currently working in the most prestigious workplaces such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, and Booking.com
GUST Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr Salah Al-Saharan, said, “We are proud to host such a prestigious event, and hope to continue building GUST’s name as a frontrunner in the field of technology while also equipping our students with the right skills and knowledge for success.”
GPC is an extension of the National Programming Contest that was first initiated in the United Arab Emirates. In 2011, the decision was made to expand the contest to include the universities in the Gulf region. Kuwait was the first country to participate from outside the UAE, and GUST was the first university to represent Kuwait at the competition and later the first to host it outside the UAE.
Succeed
GUST Head of Computer Science Department, Dr. Taher Ali, said “I am extremely proud of the results our students were able to achieve. This is a testament to the robustness of our program and the drive they have to succeed.”
This year, more teams and universities from across the region participated in the contest, which cements the position of Computer Science as a field of growth and importance. Some of the universities participating this year were Qatar University and Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, King Faisal University and Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University from Saudi Arabia, Bits Pilani Dubai, Khalifa University, Zayed University and UAE University from the Emirates, and Sultan Qaboos University and College of Applied Sciences - Sohar from Oman. The other institutions that participated from Kuwait are Kuwait University, American University of Kuwait, Arab Open University, College of Business Studies at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, Kuwait Technical College, and Kuwait College for Science and Technology.
The list of the top ten teams by rank at this year’s GPC are: Read as Rank; Team Name and University Bug::Life — Gulf University for Science and Technology - Kuwait; Javamatics — Arab Open University - Kuwait; KFU_Male — King Faisal University - KSA; CodeIT — Sultan Qaboos University - Oman; SwagOverFlow — Bits Pilani - Dubai Campus; 2B||!2B — Carnegie Mellon University - Qatar; Actus — Kuwait University - Kuwait; BroCod — King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals - KSA; K-TECHERS — Kuwait Technical College - Kuwait; LOLWUT — King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals - KSA.