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HomeAchieversStudents Compete in 'Battle of the Brains'

Students Compete in ‘Battle of the Brains’

BattleoftheBrains.JPGBelmont students will compete in the 35th annual IBM-sponsored Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, also known as the “Battle of the Brains,” regional competition Nov. 6 at Tennessee Technological University. Tens of thousands of students in more than 90 countries will participate in the global competition, and the top 100 regional champions will go on to compete Feb. 27- March 4 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Six Belmont students will be participating in this year’s competition. Team one, also known as “Brute Force,” includes Kevin Crowl, Cameron Behar and Brandon Sharp. Team two, also known as “Bandits,” consists of Cory Hughes, Trevor Hinesley and Will Proffitt.
Students will be challenged to use their programming skills and rely on their mental endurance to solve complex, real world problems under a five-hour deadline. Teammates collaborate to rank the difficulty of the problems, deduce the requirements, design test beds and build software systems that solve the problems under the scrutiny of expert judges. The team that solves the most problems correctly in the least amount of time will win a coveted spot on the world finals roster. The best and brightest information technology students from around the globe will compete for awards, scholarships, prizes and bragging rights to the “world’s smartest trophy.” Battle of the Brains is the oldest, largest and most prestigious programming contest in the world.


“The Battle of Brains is the Olympics of the computer programming world. These students push their minds to the limit, manipulating technologies such as analytics, system optimization and collaboration to effectively solve a semester’s worth of computer programming in just five hours,” said Dr. Michael Karasick, vice president of strategy and technology at IBM Software Group. “The amount of talent that we have the opportunity to witness each year is truly impressive and a testament to the value of this competition.”
The regional schools participating are Belmont University, East Tennessee State University, Maryville College, Middle Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technological University, University of North Alabama, University of Tennessee Knoxville and Vanderbilt University.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals and students. ACM serves its global membership of 80,000 by delivering technical information and transferring ideas from theory to practice. IBM’s sponsorship commitment to the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest is part of a company-wide effort to advance the next generation of computer scientists.

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