In what is regarded as the ‘Olympics’ of computer programming professionals across the globe, two Indian teams from IIT Delhi and IIIT, Hyderabad, have outperformed their predecessors and advanced their rank to 18 in the final rounds of ACM-ICPC (the world’s largest International Collegiate Programming Contest).
“This is the first time in the history of the competition that an Indian team has secured a position within the top 20,” exclaimed Mr. Bhavin Turakhia – Founder & CEO of Directi (the leading internet products company) that launched ‘Go for Gold’ three years ago. ‘Go-for-Gold’ is a non-profit initiative that enables Indian programmers hone their intricate technical skills and provides an impetus to their creativity and teamwork while competing with the best programming wizards across the globe.
Currently in its 36th edition, the ACM-ICPC is a prestigious, international competition, run by Baylor University, USA, and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), a society of more than 96,000 computing educators, researchers, professionals, and students worldwide. This year’s finals, held in Warsaw- Poland witnessed participation from over 8,000 teams selected from 2,219 universities in 85 countries.
Exuding confidence, Nikhil Garg, one of the participants representing IIT Delhi, said “We are really delighted to have advanced India’s rank on a global platform. India is known to churn a large pool of engineering graduates every year. However, Indian students are yet to make a mark at a global level due to lack of adequate training and excessive reliance on theoretical knowledge in comparison with our global counterparts. Directi’s ‘Go for Gold’ and their ‘CodeChef’ platform have helped us test our skills and interact with peers in the industry. “
According to a recent report by Aspiring Minds on national employability in India, even though India produces five lakh engineering graduates every year, employability with regards to Indian IT services is around 17.45 %. The number falls down even more, when it comes to Indian IT product companies- to a dismal 2.68%.
Mr. Bhavin Turakhia concluded, “India has always been a hot spot for software development, with our software strengths being well entrenched. While this is true, Indian programmers haven’t yet made it big, compared to the talent from Russia, China, USA and Germany who are the ‘preferred’ choices at a global level. Having said that, the next phase of growth in the Indian IT industry is hence, a major concern, and an evolved set of skills is required to drive this growth. ‘Go for-Gold’ is an attempt to boost the programming talent in the country by providing appropriate training. Collaborations between organization and educational institutes will also ensure support to the upcoming Indian software developers and help India make their mark.”
The ACM-ICPC draws participation from the crème-de-la-crème of the programming community across the globe. Last year 103 teams throughout the world participated in the world finals.