November 19, 2002
UNB Fredericton News Release: C580
Sandra Howland, Manager, Ceremonies, Events and Community Outreach (506) 458-7968

The “A” programming team at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton placed second behind Harvard at the ACM Northeast North American Regional Programming Competition last week in Rochester, N.Y.

Both teams solved four of the eight programming problems posed in the five hours allotted. The third- and fourth-place finishers — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Saint Mary’s University — solved three problems each.

UNBF’s team members are Graham Fyffe and Nathan Scott, both of Fredericton, and Sean Falconer of St. Stephen, N.B. Mr. Fyffe is a master’s student in the faculty of computer science while his teammates are in their third-year of the bachelor of computer science program.

“The three have only been programming together for about a month,” explains Joe Horton, a professor of computer science. “They have been training with assistant professor Oleg Goloubitski, who himself competed in the world championship a few years ago representing Moscow State University.

“The teams have only a single computer to use among them during the competition, so that teamwork is very important.”

Teams from universities and colleges in Quebec, Atlantic Canada, the New England states and New York State, excluding New York City, were eligible to compete in local competitions leading up to the regional competition in Rochester.

Victors in 30 regional competitions worldwide will compete for a $10,000 top prize at the ACM World Finals to be held in March 2003 in Beverly Hills, Ca. UNB may qualify for the World Finals through a wildcard spot.

The world finals have been organized by ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, for 26 years, and have been sponsored by IBM in recent years.

Founded in 1947, the Association for Computing Machinery is an international association for information technology professionals and students. It has 75,000 members worldwide.

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