Google Code Jam 2006

Polish Student Takes Google Code Jam Europe Crown
London, July 5th 2006 – Tomasz Czajka from Poland came out on top following last week’s Google Code Jam Europe final in Dublin. He beat 49 other competitors from 15 different countries to take home the coveted title and €2,500 prize money. Finalists from Eastern Europe dominated, with eight of the overall top 10 coming from Poland, Russia and Estonia.

Nearly two thirds of the 50 finalists were from Eastern Europe, with 11 from Poland. All finalists enjoyed an all expenses paid weekend in Dublin and a share in the €30,000 prize money. As well as rewarding Europe’s top computer programmers, Google hopes that the competition will help attract top engineering talent to its growing number of European R&D centers.

“We were delighted to see so many high quality finalists competing in the first ever Code Jam Europe. It was a very intense and exciting final, Tomasz did extremely well to keep his cool and finish top of a very talented field," says Knut Magne Risvik, Norway Engineering Site Director.

After three grueling rounds, cracking some of the toughest computer coding challenges along the way, nearly 10,000 entrants were reduced to just 50.The Dublin final saw competitors devising their own algorithms, winning points if their code proved to be unbreakable and losing points if someone else managed to crack it.

Belarus (1)	Bulgaria (1)	Croatia (1)	Denmark (1)
Estonia (1)	Germany (6)	Latvia(1)	Netherlands (4)
Norway (1)	Poland (11)	Russian Federation (10)	Slovakia (4)
South Africa (1)	Sweden (4)	Ukraine (1)	United Kingdom (2)

Code Jamming in Dublin
On June 29th, Google Dublin hosted the onsite finals for Code Jam Europe 2006. This is the third of four code competitions slated for this year, with China in January, India in April and a Global Code Jam this fall.

After nearly 10,000 registrants and three intense online rounds, the top 50 finalists persevered and flew to Dublin for the final challenge. ACM members also joined the coding community fun, traveling from countries as far afield as Kazakhstan, Russia, Sweden, Egypt, Spain, France, Poland and Bulgaria to celebrate the success of the finalists. Several of the ACMers had qualified for the Code Jam Finals in their own right, and having them in Dublin added a real buzz to the proceedings.

Over 15 countries were represented in the finals, and 31 of the top 50 are from Eastern Europe. We celebrate the success of the top finishers: Tomasz Czajka from Poland took home the €2500 grand prize; second- and third-prize winners were Petr Mitricheve and Roman Elizarov, both from Russia, who won €1000 each.

Watch the fun that defined Code Jam Europe in this short clip from the 3-day event - and keep on coding to prepare for the next one!