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HPU continued its impressive streak of success this year in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), earning top placement in Division I at the Hawai‘i site of the competitive Pacific Northwest Region (PNR). HPU teams won second, fourth, and fifth places in Division I, and two teams successfully competed in Division II. HPU faces some of the toughest challengers in the PNR, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and the Å·ÃÀAƬ of British Columbia.  

 Division I Teams:

• Second place team “#FF0000” included Pierre Erard, Grant Garrison, and Matthew Holck.
• Fourth place team “#00FF00” was composed of Aaron Bauman, Taylor Alagao, and Anh Pham.
• Fifth place team “#0000FF” featured Peter Aguilera, Vincent Steiner, and Nikki San Agustin.

 

Division II Teams:

• Third place team “#5EA1CE” included Bjoerne Oevreaas, Frederik Lunde, and Eva Stamatovska.
• Tied for fourth place, team “#BADA55”, was made up of Ingunn Tonetta Erdal, Ingrid-Margrethe Theodorsen, and Noe Silva.

 

HPU’s impressive record of 13 wins at the ICPC Hawai‘i site in the ICPC began with a win in its inaugural year in 2003. Other Hawai‘i universities have also competed in the contest, including UH Hilo with six wins, BYU Hawai‘i with three wins, and UH Mānoa, which joined the contest in 2015 and is pursuing its first win. 

"HPU’s success in the ICPC reflects the hard work and problem-solving skills of our students. This competition pushes them to tackle complex challenges as a team, preparing them for real-world scenarios in computer science. I am very proud of our accomplishments, and we look forward to next year’s contest," said HPU Associate Professor of Computer Science Curt Powley, Ph.D., coach of the HPU computer programming teams.

The ICPC is recognized as the largest and most prestigious programming competition globally, with over 50,000 students from more than 3,000 universities in 111 countries competing annually.

Participation in the contest provides students with invaluable skills, including advanced programming, problem-solving, and teamwork. Two HPU computer science graduates who later worked at Google credited their ICPC experience with helping them secure their roles. They noted that many of their interview questions mirrored program-contest scenarios, emphasizing the practical benefits of the competition.  

For more information about HPU’s ICPC participation, contact Powley at cpowley@hpu.edu.