Moscow Hosts ICPC World Championship 2021 Finals

September 30, 2021, 17:53 (UTC+3)|

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From October 1 to October 6, 2021, for the first time, Moscow holds the finals of the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC).

More than 60,000 student programmers from more than 3,000 universities from up to 115 countries participate in qualifying rounds each year, and only the best of them reach the finals.

The upcoming final will feature 100 teams with 15 from Russian teams, including five from Moscow. These are students of MIPT, Lomonosov Moscow State University, HSE, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, and Moscow Aviation Institute.

The current champion is the Moscow team, which won two consecutive years. Last year, due to the pandemic, the final was not held, and in 2019 it was held in Porto (Portugal), 10 Russian teams took part in it, including three from Moscow.

At the final stage in Moscow, teams of three people will compete in logic, speed and strategy for five hours, defining optimal solutions for 8-12 unique algorithmic problems of varying degrees of complexity. The teams are ranked according to the number of problems solved.

During the online conference on the opening night, the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Digital Development Maxim Parshin recalled that Russia has been participating in this championship since 1995. At the same time, in 2021, most teams were represented by China (18 teams), Russia and India (15 teams each), Brazil (9), and South Korea (6).

Today we are ahead of all other countries in the number of medals. During this time, Russian teams have become absolute world champions 14 times. In total, they won 80 sets of medals, 33 of which are gold. Moscow universities have two world championship cups, two titles of European champions and more than 20 prizes.

Maxim Parshin

Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation

In turn, the head of the Moscow City Information Technology Department, Eduard Lysenko, spoke about the capital's IT staff.

We now have about 600,000 IT specialists in the labor market. One in five vacancies is in the field of IT or communications. There is a trend towards IT specialists. On the one hand, it’s a good sign, on the other, it is a huge challenge for the education system, business managers, government authorities, because IT is a tool for digital transformation.

Edward Lysenko

Minister of the Government of Moscow, Head of the Moscow Department of Information Technologies

ICPC Executive Director, ICPC Foundation President William Poucher recalled other competitors.

I represent 400,000 ICPC alumni who have participated in 43 finals that have taken place before. Today, the 44th final will be held in Moscow. ICPC is a global community of universities that ask their students to develop their problem solving skills.

William Poucher

ICPC Executive Director, ICPC Foundation President

ICPC is the oldest and most prestigious IT team competition in the world, which has been held annually since 1977. Russia joined the championship in 1995 and today is ahead of all countries in the number of medals. Over the last 20 years, Russian students have won 33 gold medals and have maintained a winning streak since 2012.