UCT Team tops the Standard Bank IT Challenge heats

A record-breaking number of 20 UCT teams participated in the Standard Bank IT Challenge heats on Saturday May 16, 2015. Even though one other team was away participating at the ICPC world finals in Morocco, UCT nevertheless managed display excellent problem solving and programming skills, scooping up 1st, 2nd, 4th, 7th and 8th place in the top-10 of the in the overall classification, out of 91 participating teams from universities across South Africa.

The winning team – Ashraf Moolla, Dylan Nelson and Kyle Levin – of “This was easier last year” had solved 5 problems and will represent UCT at the finals next semester in August 2015. In second position, fastest to have solved 4 problems, was the “#Map Filter Reduce” team consisting of Guy Paterson-Jones, Tashiv Sewpersad, and Sinead Urisohn, and, following a wits team, the “gone phishing” team consisting of Kiuran Naidoo, Shaylan Lalloo, and Robin Visser came 4th. Promising runners-up on 7th place in the overall classification having solved 3 problems fastest was the team “Committee of Machine Programmers Seeking Cable Internet”, whose team members are all 1st year students: Jonathan Bouwer, Ural Jonathan Alp, and Thabang Ndlovu.

Standard Bank South Africa, kindly sponsored backpack bags, pizzas and cold drinks for the local heats held in the Computer Science Building at UCT.