Students from St. Petersburg University of IT, Mechanics and Optics in Russia took top honors in the 32nd annual Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest.
Also known as “The Battle of the Brains,” the competition, sponsored by IBM and held in Banff, Alberta, Canada, challenged students to solve a semester's worth of computer programming in five hours. The St. Petersburg team solved eight of 11 problems.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States of America, Izhevsk State Technical University in Russia and Lviv National University in Ukraine finished the competition in second, third, and fourth places, respectively, and all won Gold medals.
The first place team brings home IBM prizes, scholarships, and bragging rights to the “world's smartest” trophy.