The university’s team Game of Nolife won Western European programming contest for students

In the finals in Thailand in spring 2016, the students from the University of Helsinki will face the best teams in the world.

The University of Helsinki has won the inter-university NWERC 2015 programming contest that was held in Linköping recently. It was attended by 95 teams from Western Europe. The Game of Nolife team from the University of Helsinki consisted of computer-science and maths students Tuukka Korhonen, Olli Hirviniemi and Otte Heinävaara.

-It feels great, especially since there were teams from strong universities like KTH in Stockholm, Oxford, and Cambridge, says Antti Laaksonen, the coach for the winning team.

The topic of the contest is the programming of algorithms, and the contestants have to solve a number of difficult programming problems. They are given five hours to solve them. Each team has one computer at their disposal for programming the algorithm.

The Game of Nolife team prepared for the November contest in Linköping with a training camp at the MIPT university in Moscow. The ten-day camp was organised right before the contest, and it helped the contestants especially with solving the geometric problems.

-The level of contest programming in Russia is very high, and the team had the opportunity to compete against some of the best Russian teams during the camp, Laaksonen says.

The finals will be held in Thailand in May 2016. The teams in the finals have won regionals around the world. The goal of Game of Nolife is to win a medal, which will require a lot of training during the spring.

Main page of the contest: http://www.nwerc.eu/

Results: http://www.nwerc.eu/scoreboard/

Image: The Game of Nolife team, left to right Otte Heinävaara, Tuukka Korhonen, and Olli Hirviniemi.

 

Image: Pauliina Pajunen

Text: Minna Meriläinen-Tenhu

Translation: Marina Kurtén

Created date

03.12.2015 - 15:49

International Master’s programmes a welcome challenge

The Department of Computer Science can face a new era next autumn, as two out of three specialisation programmes at the Master’s level are planning to adopt English as their teaching language. In future, the courses of Algorithms and machine learning as well as Distributed systems are considered to be given in English, while Software systems continues in Finnish.

Official opening of Software Factory on March 4th, 2010 at 13-17

The Software Factory is a strategic investment of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki into a new infrastructure supporting software engineering research, education and entrepreneurship.

From competition to collaboration

katherineicay.jpg

Katherine Icay, Honours Bachelor of actuarial science at the University of Toronto, decided to make a career turn after a few years in an insurance company. Although fascinated by the theoretical foundations of her study field, she ultimately found the business environment unsuitable for her character.

Department receives university welfare award

The University of Helsinki has granted the Department of Computer Science the university’s safety and welfare award 2009. According to the award diploma, the department staff has collaborated to improve the quality, safety, and welfare of its working environment with determination and good results.

The 5,000-euro award has been granted on the proposition of the safety and welfare commission.