EWUIPC ends with gratifying finale

"We believe, we have accomplished an outstanding achievement on our goal towards an insightful and collaborative cooperation in setting up a pioneering milestone towards proving that our juvenile generation scientists also carry the potential that may well become a vital beneficial factor towards building a firm nation standing on a concrete information and communication technology (ICT) platform," said Shahriar Manzoor, judging director for the panel of judges EWUIPC2006, who is also the only Bangladeshi chosen as a judge for the Association for Computing Machinery International Computer Programming Contest (ACMICPC).

The competition was participated by 75 teams of 36 private and public universities of the country. A seminar titled 'New growth of software industries: Getting ready' organised by Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (Basis) was also held on the same day, which primarily focused on associating the existing ICT industry with the nation's academia.

"This contest will assure a definite contribution towards building an integrated human resource association from both the academe and the investors of the ICT industrialists," stated Sarwar Alam, president, Basis, while recognising the national ICT sector as a powerful tool for facilitating economic growth, along with fostering social development and good governance.

"While EWU stands as one of the well-established private universities of the country, such a competition has surely created a common interest among the relatively younger universities to administer such practical ideas towards bringing out the budding aptitude and capabilities from its apprentices," said Prof M Zafar Iqbal, chief judge, EWUIPC2006 and chairperson, department of computer science and engineering, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, encouraging more of such competitions from the nation's academia towards demonstration of problem solving ability, programming and team-skills.

Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology (Buet) team, namely 'XC33D' snatched away the first place, solving 7 problems out of ten, while 'Innovator' (Buet) and 'Enigma' Nort South University (NSU) became the first and second runners-up respectively, solving 6 problems each.

"There was a time when we claimed knowledge is power, while nowadays its more of information and data exchange capacity that replaces the earlier assertion, and hence more is required to build a bridge of such exchange between the academics and the national ICT industry," said Dr M Asaduzzaman, chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC), referring to how information technology has opened up huge opportunities for developing countries like Bangladesh.

The event was supported by ExIm Bank (Bangladesh), Citibank (Bangladesh) and Basis, while 'Computer Jagat', a prominent ICT monthly, acted as the official media partner for the contest.