HPU is First in State for 7th Year in a Row at ICPC

The Hawai‘i Pacific University Division I computer programming team has taken the top spot in Hawai’i at the 2020 International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) for a 7th year in a row. The University has earned this distinction 11 times in the last 17 years, a remarkable achievement that has not been matched by any university in Hawai‘i. The ICPC is recognized as the largest and most prestigious programming contest in the world. 

 “We compete in the Pacific Northwest Region, one of the toughest regions in the United States,” said HPU Associate Professor of Computer Science Curt Powley, Ph.D. “In last year's regionals, 58,963 contestants from 3,406 universities in 104 countries on six continents competed at over 643 sites.”  

The winning HPU team name is #00FF00, the hexadecimal-number-system code for the color green. The three students who competed on this year’s Division I team are Kevin Chevalier, Brian Chalfant, and Brett Warrender. This year’s contest clinches four Hawai‘i state wins for Chevalier. Also competing for HPU on Division II teams were Edward Flores, Weiyi (Chloe) Huang, Alyssa Lawton, Truong Nguyen, Kristoffer Winemiller, and Lone Hallum (visiting student from Denmark).  

 “We have two HPU graduates that work for Google,” said Powley. “They told me most of the interview questions were program-contest type experiences. Both graduates believe they would not have gotten the job at Google without ICPC experience.” 

If an HPU student would like to join the award-winning computer programming team they are encouraged to apply. Each student brings valuable skills to the table. 

“We have now had math, biology, engineering, and computer science majors who have competed in the ICPC,” said Powley. “Any student who works hard in preparing for and competing in the contest will greatly increase his or her programming and problem-solving skills. Visiting international students have also done well competing for HPU, and we welcome them as well.  HPU typically enters between three to six 3-person teams in the contest, so there are plenty of slots for students to compete.”  

For additional information on joining one of HPU’s computer science programming teams contact Curt Powley, Ph.D., at cpowley@hpu.edu.