India: 593 teams but no win at IPSC
By Ria Sharma

The Europe based Internet Problem Solving Contest (IPSC) describes itself as an “online contest for teams consisting of up to three people. Several problems will be published at the beginning of the competition. Each problem consists of a problem description and two input data sets. To solve a problem you will have to compute correct output data for the given input data sets.

Sponsored by Facebook, IPSC was held on June 6, 2010. As in the past, there were hundreds of teams and competition was intense.

If you needed any further evidence on how India will face increasing competition in a flat world, it could be seen in the results of the IPSC competition.

More than 850 teams (groups, individuals and schools) participated in the online competition.  China fielded 143 teams, United States 178, Russia 75, Poland 34 and Iran had 15 teams.  India fielded a record 593 teams with most IIT’s participating.  Some smaller countries only fielded a couple of teams.

The results are out and the first Open Division Position prize went to Team R+T+J from United States, representing institutions Harvard and Google. The Secondary School Division was won by Team MapleStory from China, representing institution Shaoxing No.1 High School 

No. 2 position in Open Division and Secondary School Division went to China and Belarus respectively.

No. 3 position in Open Division and Secondary School Division went to Google Korea and Croatia respectively.

The remaining top ten spots were taken up by teams from Russia, Korea, Ukraine, China, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Poland, United States, Canada and even Antarctica.

No Indian IIT made it to the top 10 positions in the Open Division.  No Indian school made it to the top ten in the Secondary School Division.

(Techgoss had published the following article on June 4, 2010)

India preparing for IPSC
By Ria Sharma

The Internet Problem Solving Contest (IPSC) describes itself as an “online contest for teams consisting of up to three people. Several problems will be published at the beginning of the competition. Each problem consists of a problem description and two input data sets. To solve a problem you will have to compute correct output data for the given input data sets. Usually this means that you will write a program that solves the problem, but you may produce the output by hand or in any other way. “

The competition is sponsored by Facebook and is scheduled for June 6, 2010.  Apart from the cash prize, Facebook will also be offering full time and internship positions to the winners.

While the total cash prize is only $3000 of which the first team will be given $1200, the contest is already a huge success in India and the rest of the world.

India is fielding tens of teams from elite technological colleges like Chennai Mathematical Institute, BIT Ranchi, IIIT Hyderabad, NIT Durgapur, Bangalore Institute of Technology, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Roorkee, IIT Khargpur, Delhi University and many others.