Berita

UNIVERSITI Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) has once again emerged as champions in the ACM ICPC Malaysia al-Khawarizmi National Programming Contest 2018.

Comprising Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FICT) students Lim Yun Kai, Chow Jenn Pang and Lai Wing Khang, the team “KitKat” shone at the contest held at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in Kuala Lumpur.

The contest, which was also part of the larger Association for Com­puting Machinery-International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM ICPC), was organised by IIUM’s Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology.

This was the third time the university won the contest, after 2014 and 2016.

In the finals, each team was given 10 problem statements with accompanying data to solve within five hours.

Contestants were required to find solutions by using their knowledge in mathematics and algorithms to process the data.

Team KitKat successfully solved nine statements, while IM26C4u and Make Malaysia Great Again solved eight and seven respectively.

FICT lecturer Dr Ng Yen Kaow, who was the team’s mentor, said the contest was one of the most prestigious programming contests in the world.

“It is the oldest contest of its kind, where the judging is not performed by a human.

“The contestants need to figure out algorithms to be implemented and submitted into a computer programme,” he said.

“The computer will then verify the programming against a large database of known solutions for the problems.

“The contestants are allowed to retry a problem until he or she arrives at a correct formula, but an incorrect one would penalise the contestants,” he added.

Lim said he had fun in the contest.

“We are glad and proud to win this prestigious contest.

“Without my teammates and the support from Dr Ng, our success would not have been possible,” he said.

“I would like to thank them for the effort and support they have provided throughout the contest,” he added.

Chow said he was able to enhance his programming, algorithm and problem-solving skills through the contest.

“It was a fun and challenging experience for me as I was exposed to different kinds of real-world problems and learnt different techniques and skills to solve given problems successfully and competently,” he said.

A total of 13 universities from all over Malaysia took part in the contest.

Apart from Utar, the other institutions included Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Universiti Tenaga Nasional.

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