Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar hosts inaugural High School Programming Competition

The competition was designed to allow high school students to compete against their peers in a computer science-based contest.

"Our responsibility in Qatar spans the entire community. We believe we have to sponsor events that will extend the environment of computer science, especially to the secondary schools," says Majd Sakr, Ph.D., who was one of the coordinators of the event.

During the competition, teams of up to three students were given three computer problems and three hours to work together to find a solution to each one. Students used their knowledge of computer programming languages such as JAVA, C and C++ to solve their problems. A panel of Carnegie Mellon faculty worked as judges to determine if the programming code executed the correct solution.

First place was awarded to Abdul Hfuda and Rami Arrabi, the American School of Doha. Second place went to Nadeem Moidu, Faisal Naseem and Fazeel Mohamed Haris, M.E.S Indian School. Third place went to Ashish Malhotra, Thejas Krishnan and Manu Mohan, M.E.S Indian School.

Other participating teams were: Luma Munzer Diab, Global Academy; Vartan Shadarevian, Gautam Pisapati and Omar Khan, Doha College; and Tyler Matthews and Andrei Popescu, American School of Doha.

In addition to the competition, students and their teachers were treated to lunch, a presentation on studying computer science and a live robot demonstration. Carnegie Mellon Qatar plans to make this an annual event that will attract students from all over the Region.

"Competitions like this give creative computer science students an opportunity to get together and put their skills to use," says Sakr. "We hope this competition is one of many outreach events between Carnegie Mellon and local high schools."