Carnegie Mellon team first to represent Qatar at programming world championship

Doha, Qatar: Three computer science students at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU Q) have made history by becoming the first team to represent...

Doha, Qatar: Three computer science students at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) have made history by becoming the first team to represent Qatar at the world championship of the International Collegiate Programming Competition (ICPC).

The team won the Qatar national competition in September, beating out more than 200 students for the top spot. They represented Qatar at the Africa-Arab regionals in Egypt, and after a strong showing they advanced to the world championship later this year.

The winning team consists of computer science third-year student Andrey Genze, and seniors Ulan Seitkaliyev and Gulnaz Serikbay.

Michael Trick, dean of CMU-Q, said: “Computer science education in Qatar has come very far in just a few short years. The first Qatar national competition took place only three years ago, and this year we have a team advance to the world finals. We are exceptionally proud to contribute to the culture of programming and problem solving in Qatar.”

Giselle Reis is the area head of computer science at CMU-Q, and a key organizer of the Qatar national competition: “The CMU-Q team’s showing in Egypt places them among the top 1% competitive programmers in the world. This is an amazing achievement. We are delighted that Qatar is on the programming competition map.”