Two silver medals for École Polytechnique at the SWERC programming contest
École Polytechnique won two silver medals at the SWERC (Southwestern Europe Regional Contest), its teams of Cycle Ingénieur polytechnicen and Bachelor students coming 3rd and 4th respectively.
Launched in 1977, this prestigious student programming contest is designed to select the best international teams, who then go on to compete in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). It was organized in Paris on January 27th and 28th by Sorbonne Université (directors Christoph Dürr, Gabriel Bathie, Emmanuel Chailloux).
This year, six students from Ecole Polytechnique took part in the five-hour programming competition, during which teams of three students had to implement efficient solutions to algorithmic problems, using a single computer per team. The 107 teams competing came from 65 universities and Grandes Ecoles in six major south-western European countries (France, Israel, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Portugal).
The best of the two Ecole Polytechnique teams, "cnXtv", qualifies for the European competition in Prague in March, as well as for the ICPC final in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, in September.
Apprehending these tests requires students to excel in mathematics, algorithms and programming. To achieve this result, the students received support from the Direction des études and from the computer science department, Marie-Paule Cani, Samuel Mimram and Éric Goubault, to enable them to concentrate on their training. Coach Jill-Jênn Vie organized an intensive training session as part of a new course on advanced competitive programming.
For students, experience of the ICPC SWERC competition is a springboard for their careers. In the short term, this experience can lead to an internship, a master's degree or a PhD at top international universities. In a second phase, this experience can be leveraged, if students so wish, to secure employment with major international companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple or IBM.
Team composition:
Team "cnXtv" (3rd, silver medal, 11 problems solved out of 13): Luca Perju Viazotti, Flaviu-Cristian Verde, Luca-Mihnea Metehau.
Team "eXotic" (4th, silver medal, 10 problems solved out of 13): Quang Huy Le, Sirawit Pongnakintr, Gabriel Tostes.
Three other students were reserve members of these two teams: Aymane Moutei, Zhicheng Hui, Mostafa Djanbaz.