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07.09

IEEE-USA Co-Sponsors 2009 TopCoder Open

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In June, IEEE-USA co-sponsored one of the world’s top programming competitions — the 2009 TopCoder Open — held annually by global developer community TopCoder. This year's showdown took place on 4 June at the Mirage Resort in Las Vegas, Nev., bringing together 76 finalists from 17 countries to compete in a wide range of competitions with more than $150,000 at stake. The TopCoder Open always generates great deal of interest, and this year's event was no different, sporting an expanded field of competition tracks, new sponsors such as IEEE-USA, SNIA-XAM, NSA and Facebook, and the AOL Sensations Challenge.

Bin Jin, an 18-year-old high school student from Shanghai,
holds aloft his trophy for winning this year's TCO.

The TopCoder Open is the flagship event of TopCoder calendar year, drawing the top software developers from around the world to match skills in a variety of competitions, with last month’s competition having drawn nearly 6,000 talented competitors registered across all competitions.

TopCoder Open participants are both professional and collegiate developers who compete head-to-head over several online elimination rounds until the best are flown in to compete in person at the onsite finals. This event is traditionally dominated by the highest-rated members in the TopCoder community, but enjoys heavy participation and spectatorship from developers and business professionals of all levels. Taking part in the ‘TCO’ gives competitors the opportunity to showcase their programming and/or design skills up against some of the best in the world, and for sponsors, it offers global branding and the chance to interface with the at large TopCoder community as well as onsite finalists.

This year's TCO expanded to include a record nine tracks of competition, offering a specialized opportunity for members to test their skills in every aspect of software. The full lineup of competition tracks include: Algorithm; Architecture; Assembly; Component Design; Component Development; Marathon; Mod Dash; Specification and Studio Design.

TopCoder is also a growing developer of commercial grade software, a fully functioning software factory that conceptualizes, designs/develops and delivers to enterprise clients. Members can earn cash prizes by competing in competitions which run 24x7 during spare work cycles, whilst between jobs or even as a full time source of income. They also derive value by continuing an ongoing learning process and acquiring new skills. By becoming active on the TopCoder forums with like-minded people who share a common passion for computer programming they can enjoy a wealth of professional and social support.

TopCoder’s Business: Software by Competition

On the business side, TopCoder is a full service software factory — building professional grade software for clients ranging in size from individual entrepreneurs and start ups up to the Fortune 500. The component-based methodology, which has often been compared to a development version of Henry Ford’s production line, involves rigorous standards and a reusable component-based process that uses deep metrics and analysis of all aspects of the work to produce high-quality solutions very quickly. TopCoder's methodologies ensure that software components and solutions are retained and reused, thereby maintaining high productivity and low-cost solutions for its clients.

For more information on the TopCoder Open, visit www.topcoder.com/tco09.