The Department of Computer Science team dubbed "ALPHA-ZERO" has scooped the first position at the 21st ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) which took place on 26th October 2019. The "ALPHA-ZERO" team which comprised of Michelo Chandula, Peter Kaboto and Davies Ikowa managed to correctly solve one out of the 10 programming questions.
The ICPC which is an annual event undertaken from respective countries is a team-based programming contest where teams of three students solve programming problems within five (5) hours, non-stop. Eight (8) teams from the Department of Library and Information Science (LIS) and Department of Computer Science (CS) where competing against 81 teams from Sub-Saharan Africa. The Zambia site contest was organised and administered by Dr. Mayumbo Nyirenda a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, Dr. Lighton Phiri and Mr. Phyela Mbewe both Lecturers in the Department of Library and Information Science.
The first and second Regional positions were won by teams from South Africa and Ethiopia, respectively.
The programming problems the teams were solving are available on the official Regional ACM ICPC Website [1]. The official results are available on the Regional ACM ICPC Website [2] and the official ACM ICPC Website [3].
[1] http://www.icpc.co.za
[2] http://www.icpc.co.za/Files2019/standings_Final_V3.pdf
[3] https://icpc.baylor.edu/…/finder/South-Africa-2019/standings