ACM ICPC Asia Regionals - Amrita University

This month starting was an awesome time...

I went to kerala to attend the ACM ICPC Regionals Onsite programming round.

I ll start first with the details about ACM ICPC:

Every year Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) conducts International Collegiate Programming Contest(ICPC) where the top 100 teams from all over the world compete at the finals. To select this 100 teams there are regionals all over the world. Since I was from Asia Region i was asked to participate in the regional which will be held in Asia.

So i chose The kerala site which is nearer to me. We went to the Amrita University for the onsite for which the selection was initially did by an online round. They shortlisted around 58 teams for the onsite round.

There were teams from all over India and other asian countries like Singapore, Sri Lanka etc....

The date of contest was 6th. But they said we can reach the site from 4th onwards. Due to the train availability we went to Kerala on 4th early morning 05:30 AM by Kochuvelli Express which was a special train.

All things in kerala was awesome. The most awesome was the Food we got and the Hospitality we had. so some how the day passed away. They had a practice session on 5th so that day was also some how went.

On 6th came the real terror. There were 9 problems which were very challengin. I ll skip saying about the bitter experience of competition. That day evening we had an Entertainment session after the Certificate distribution. It was awesome.

On 7th they arranged for an Excursion to ThenMala. The trip was really cool. Cool in the sense both the enjoyment as well as the weather. Altogether i nealy took photos and videos of 3GB in kerala.

Last but not least the departuring session. We had train at the midnight at 1:30 Guruvayur Express which is not a straight train. The next we woke up at 10:00 and had breakfast and the day passed by talking to the pasengers in the train...

We reached the destination by 9:00 PM and i came to home by 11:00 and it was totally Enjoyed trip with the onli defect of not winning the competiton..

Microsoft launches DreamSpark in India!‏

On 5^th November 2008, Microsoft unveiled DreamSpark - a software giveaway for an estimated 10 million eligible students in India. DreamSpark will provide students access to the latest Microsoft developer and designer tools at no charge.

Microsoft DreamSpark will be available to all students whose studies touch on technology, design, math, science and engineering. The software available to students will include:

Microsoft developer tools

• Visual Studio 2005 Express
• Visual Studio 2005 Professional
• Visual Studio 2008 Professional
• Visual Basic 2008 Express
• Visual C++ 2008 Express
• Visual C# 2008 Express
• Visual Web Developer 2008 Express
• XNA Game Studio 2.0
• 12-month free Academic membership in the XNA Creators Club

Microsoft designer tools

Expression Studio 2, including

o Expression Web

o Expression Blend

o Expression Design

o Expression Media

Microsoft platform resources

• SQL Server 2008 Developer
• SQL Server 2008 Express
• Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
• Virtual PC 2007

Training Resources

• IT Academy Student Pass

This broad range of professional-level software will be available both online via www.dreamsparkindia.com; and in offline format via DVDs distributed by program partners NIIT, Aptech and Hughes Net Fusion Centers. A student merely needs to offer a proof of identity at a branch of these institutes to avail of a DreamSpark DVD. There are 125 NIIT, 175 Aptech, and 200 Hughes Net Fusion Centers participating across the country.

These program partners will also provide technology training on the DreamSpark software tools at a nominal cost; as well as have the option of soft skills training in languages like English and Hindi. Microsoft India is also working with academic institutions, government bodies and student organizations across the country to ensure that all students get a chance to benefit from DreamSpark.

The DreamSpark program in India is tailor-made to join the dots between software access and employability - which means making training and enablement complement simple access to technology.

DreamSpark will also facilitate student participation in Microsoft’s annual marquee contest, Imagine Cup, through various contest categories such as software design, short films, photography etc. Students from India that qualify for the Imagine Cup 2009 World Finals will get to travel to Egypt. Selected teams will also get the opportunity to get mentored by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM, Ahmedabad.

Addressing students and academicians at IIT Delhi – where the DreamSpark program was unveiled - Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft Corp, said, “We want to do everything we can to equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software to improve lives, solve problems and catalyze economic growth. Microsoft DreamSpark provides professional-level tools that we hope will inspire students like you to explore the power of software and encourage you to forge the next wave of software-driven breakthroughs.”

Regards,

M. Aruraj,

Microsoft Student Partner, Chennai.

Programming

Hello friends,

I'm really sorry for not posting anything for past 2 months.... I was mentally busy with my studies and physically with my paper and project works.....

So i thought i wud come back with a new topic which im very passionate about......

Yes it is programming..... Programming means not just coding a program.... I'm interested in Algorithmic programming....

Initially it started for me when i was in the last month of my 11th standard (+1)... When i got selected for the regionals INOI (Indian National Olympiad for Informatics)....

It was conducted by IARCS ( Indian Association for Research in Computing Science )....

And out of suprise i got cleared it eventhough i didnt know anything of algorithms and time complexity....

I know wat were they as one of my school senior and my inspiration Prasanna gave me some ideas about Dynamic Programming and solving stratergies... Still i owe him my performance.

Lets come to the olympiad thing.. Its first round is a Zonal Informatics in Olympiad round where u get about 5 questions in various topics inside Algorithms & programming... And u wont beleive u get about 3 hours to solve it... Then think of the toughness of the problems......

The second round it INOI u get 2 problems to solve in the GNU compilers ( it is quite intresting to read abt GNU )...

After this around 30 students are called to the final training camp which will be held at TISB (The International School Bangalore)....

There you get training from various universities like CMI, IISc,... And every day a programming test section. Together all the marks are totalled and they are evaluated on the final to select 4 students who will be going to IOI ( International Olympiad in Informatics) ....

They are sponsored by SASKEN for travelling and etc.....

So nice of this contest no....

And i forgot to say this is onli for school students....

I ll come in the later blogs about the programming events for college students and professionals