UT Programmers Set for Battle of the Brains

A University of Texas team travels to Sweden this week for the world's most prestigious computer programming competition: the Battle of the Brains.

One hundred teams from around the world made it through local and regional rounds for a spot in the world finals, which take place Saturday through Tuesday in Stockholm. Texas is one of 21 U.S. schools in the finals.

Representing the university are a trio of sophomore computer science majors: Josiah Godfrey, Tim Malone, and David Wahler.

The Battle of the Brains, officially known as the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, presents each three-person team with eight or more complex, real-world problems and a five-hour deadline.

Working from a single computer, the teams rank the difficulty of the problems, create requirements and testing guidelines, then build software systems that solve the problems. The team that solves the most problems in the fewest attempts in the least cumulative time is declared the winner.

Godfrey said the team practices five hours per week by working on problems from past competitions and studying different algorithms that solve certain types of problems.

A team from UT has competed in the world finals 11 other times since 1991, most recently winning honorable mention in 2007 and 2008.

Doug Heintzman, Director of Strategy at IBM Software Group and ICPC Sponsorship Executive said the contest prepares students for roles in a global workforce.

“Our world slowly gets smaller and smaller every day, requiring a highly-skilled, interconnected workforce with the flexibility to span time zones and cultures,” Heintzman said. “The ICPC provides students with the unique opportunity to enhance their critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration skills, while at the same time helping them embrace their roles as future global leaders. We’re proud to provide such talented and creative students a forum to come together in the spirit of competition and learning.”