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The University of New Orleans To Serve as First U.S. Host of International Coding Contest

  • 02/07/18

NEW ORLEANS, LA – The University of New Orleans (UNO) will serve as the first and only site in the U.S. for the 28th International Coding Contest, a worldwide computer science competition. The 2018 contest will take place on April 27 from 8 a.m. to noon on the campus of the university.

The competition is open to all students currently enrolled at a Louisiana higher education institution, including four-year universities, community colleges, and technical schools. The current registration cap is 30 students. To register, visit: https://register.codingcontest.org.

The International Coding Contest is a worldwide competition where students simultaneously compete against each other by solving tricky programming puzzles. The puzzles are provided by Catalysts, an Austrian software company. The inaugural contest took place in Austria in 1999. The current competition attracts more than 4,500 college students from 12 countries and 50 cities.

“The University of New Orleans computer science department is excited to offer our students this unique opportunity as the first American site of the International Coding Contest,” says Mahdi Abdelguerfi, professor and chair of computer science.

UNO is partnering with Flow Digital, a New Orleans-based software engineering and data science firm, to host the competition. Walter Gugenberger, the founder and CEO of Digital Flow, was an exchange student at the University of New Orleans from the University of Innsbruck in 2011.

“Catalysts asked me if I knew a place where they could launch the International Coding Contest in the United States,” Gugenberger says. “I immediately thought of UNO, since I have such wonderful memories of going to school here. Also, as a young entrepreneur in the emerging tech field in New Orleans, I want to show students that they don’t have to leave Louisiana to find their dream jobs.”

After the contest is complete, there will be a networking event, where prizes will be awarded to the top local performers and students can meet with potential employers.

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