Semi-final of the Student World Team Programming Championship Northern Eurasia Finals ICPC was held on 13-15 December simultaneously on several sites in the Russian Federation and CIS countries in the face-to-face format. 

The ICPC international competitions are held once a year in stages and gather more than 50 thousand people from several thousand universities around the world.

- A team of three students must solve as many algorithmic problems as possible in the allotted time,’ said Galina Valeryevna Basalova, PhD in Technical Sciences, Associate Professor at the Information Security Department of the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science and a teacher at TulSU's IT cluster. - Usually, the competition offers 10-13 rather complex tasks on different topics, each of which involves writing a programme code. The participants' solution is checked on a large number of test data, and it counts only if the programme gives correct answers to all the tests.... 

According to the teacher, the subject matter of the tasks is very diverse. These include optimisation problems, graph theory and route construction, big data processing, analytical geometry, string processing and natural and machine language constructs.

Tasks at such competitions are always unique, they are tailor-made for a particular event. To solve them, participants need a deep knowledge of the theory of algorithms and data structures, special sections of discrete mathematics, as well as extensive practical programming experience. 

The tasks are prepared by a jury consisting of professors from leading universities of the Russian Federation, such as ITMO, SPbSU, MIPT, HSE, and other countries, as well as former participants of Olympiads and programming competitions. All authors of the tasks are recognised experts in their field. Many of them have repeatedly won prizes at international Olympiads in computer science and programming. 

According to the jury members themselves, it takes about half a year to prepare a set of tasks of such level.

Most teams participating in ICPC competitions are eliminated at intermediate stages and do not reach the semi-finals.

The teams of Tula State University students, among about two hundred teams from other universities of the Central Federal District, continued Galina Valerievna, competed in the qualification round of the Central Russia competition at the end of September. According to its results, two teams of TulSU were invited to the next, quarterfinal stage. It took place in October in Yaroslavl and brought together the strongest student teams from Arkhangelsk, Vladimir, Vologda, Ivanovo, Kirov, Kostroma, Oryol, Rybinsk, Tver, Tula, Cherepovets, Yaroslavl and other Russian cities.

At the quarterfinal competitions the first place was taken by the team ‘TulaSU 2: kak nibud’ of Tula State University, which consisted of third-year students of ‘Informatics and Computer Science’ Lev Provotorin from the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science and Lukmon Khikmatov from the Institute of International Education, as well as third-year student of ‘Software Engineering’ from the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science Darya Salygina.

The TulSU team, the only one in Tula, got the right to participate in the next round of the competition - the semi-final of the Northern Eurasia Finals ICPC 2024 (ICPC NEF-2024).

- Successful participation in such competitions is impossible without serious preparation and individual educational trajectory of each team member, - Galina Valeryevna Basalova emphasised. - Our students had regular team training sessions, participated in educational intensives and training camps, both face-to-face and online. The last practice-training session before the semi-finals, the TulSU team was online just a week ago together with several strongest teams from ITMO University and Petrozavodsk State University. Our students did a tremendous amount of work - they studied the theory of the relevant topics, performed tasks and analysed the solutions of other authors. In general, 15 to 30 hours a week of extra time is spent on preparation for such competitions. And this is not counting the main study.

In total, more than 300 teams from educational organisations of higher education in Russia and other countries competed for the access to the finals of the World Championship. 150 teams competed in St. Petersburg. 

And here it is important to note that in recent years, one or two strongest teams of Tula State University have consistently reached the semi-finals of the ICPC, but never received medal diplomas. 

This year our team ‘TulaSU 2: kak nibud’ among other prize-winners was awarded the Diploma of II degree and received memorable gifts.

- Participation in such a competition is important itself, as team members and organisers are already a status community in sports programming, - Lev Provotorin commented. - Good results at ICPC competitions are valued not only by the participants, but also by the competing universities. Only one team from a university can qualify for the ICPC World Finals, and we were close to winning. Some teams that solved as many problems as we did, but with less penalty time, received invitations to the finals. And we proved first of all to ourselves that we did not train in vain. Besides, leading IT-companies take into account the results of participation in ICPC when employing people, as it is an indicator of programming skills and teamwork. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Tula State University for supporting students at the Olympiads, including the ICPC stages!

- Since my first year of study, I have been fascinated by algorithms and sports programming. Since then, I have participated in ICPC championships every year. And this year was no exception,’ shared Lukmon Hikmatov. - This is a very prestigious championship, participation in which means a good level of preparation. I am proud that our team received the Diploma of the II degree! It is honourable and pleasant! I have only positive impressions from these competitions! High level of organisation of the event, a lot of activities from sponsors and, of course, the joy of successful performance. 

We warmly congratulate Lev, Luka, Darya and Galina Valeryevna Basalova, who prepared our participants! We wish all of them to conquer new peaks and bright achievements!

Tatyana Krikunkova

Photo provided by the heroes of the material