IPC or the Indian Programming Community was started by Anudeep Nekkanti and now has the support of many top programmers from India mentoring the other budding programmers from the country. It is aimed at preparing the Indian teams for the coveted ACM ICPC World Finals. Applications were invited from aspiring programmers to join the group and out of many applications, the most promising people were handpicked. The group aims to learn and get better at competitive programming through discussions and help and mentoring from the top programmers of the country. For more details and updates on IPC, head over to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/indiancodersclub.
The Problem Setting Program is a brain child of Surya. It intends to encourage learning through various discussions (with mentors, leaders and co-problem setters) that happen during the process of problem setting. And what this means for you and the CodeChef community is that you get to do something that you relish! Yes, and that is to solve more mouthwatering problems. We believe that this will be a good learning experience for the problem setters, who will compete to set high quality problems and learn in the process. Read more about the rationale behind the program in the links (refer this and this).
You will also be benefitted in terms for getting some high quality problems and should consider this is a great preparatory ground for the ACM ICPC. While you battle it out for solving the problems, 9 teams of 7 programmers each, will battle amongst each other for a hefty cash prize and glory among fellow programmers. There will be a series of 12 ACM ICPC styled contests. Each team will prepared 1 problem set each resulting in 9 contests in the first round. There nine teams have been divided into 3 groups of 3 teams each. From each group the best contest team will move to the final round which will see an additional set of 3 contests, one by each team! The first 3 contests of the first round to be prepared by the first group of 3 teams are to be held on the 25th, 28th and 30th of November, 2015. The winning team of problem setters from the first 3 competitions will be identified by the admin panel of the IPC comprising of Anudeep, Surya, Praveen, Arjun, Balajiganapati and the same will happen for the next two groups. The final 3 problem setting teams will then go on to claim the top spot in 3 final contests.
There will be a series of 12 ICPC styled contests which will also serve as a great practice ground for ACM ICPC aspirants. Participation will be team based with each team having a maximum of 3 members. The contests are open to all and it is encouraged that people take part with their ICPC teams. School students can also form teams and take part.
The IPC programming series, though aimed at ACM ICPC aspirants, is not limited to them. Anyone who wants to try their hand at the problems from some of the finest programming minds in India can do so. Yes! It is open to all the programming enthusiasts across the globe.
Out of the 12 series of contests, first 9 are considered as preliminary rounds and the rest 3 are final rounds. The preliminary rounds are further divided into 3 pools say Pool 1, Pool 2 and Pool 3.
- Pool 1 consists of 3 contests. Based on the cumulative score (which will be calculated considering the no. of problems solved, time taken for submission of problem and penalties) of the first three contests, top 128 teams will be selected and given an entry to the final rounds.
- Upon the completion of first 9 contests, 384 teams will proceed to final rounds of the programming series. The 384 teams will be battling in the final 3 contests and winners are declared based on the cumulative score of the final 3 contests.
- Note: The teams even after qualifying for the final rounds can still take part in the rest of the preliminary rounds as the main objective is to provide a platform for all the ICPC aspirants to prepare. However, they won’t be considered while shortlisting teams as they would have secured their position for the final round. An individual cannot create more than one team, and he/she should continue with the same team throughout all the contests once registered.
Top 3 teams in Indian and Rest of the world category will be provided with cool IPC CodeChef goodies in each of the 12 series of contests. Goodies can be won by an individual team only once. If a team comes in the top 3 in more than one contest then the subsequent team in the ranklist will be provided with the goodie. Apart from the above below cash prizes are provided to top 3 teams of the final rounds.
- Cash Prizes for the final winners in rest of the world category. Top three spots are declared after taking into consideration of the cumulative score (of the final 3 contests):
- 1st Prize: $1000
- 2nd Prize: $500
- 3rd Prize: $200
- Cash Prizes for the final winners in Indian category. Top three spots are declared after taking into consideration of the cumulative score (of the final 3 contests):
- 1st Prize: INR 50,000
- 2nd Prize: INR 25,000
- 3rd Prize: INR 10,000
A total of INR 300,000/- will be given as cash prizes to the problem setters and the break up is as below:
- INR 17,500/- will be given to each problem setting team per contest, which comes up to a sum of INR 210,000/- (INR 17,500 * 12 contests).
- The left over INR 90,000/- will be distributed among top 3 problem setting teams based on the ratings of their problem sets. The ratings for the problem sets will given by the mentors of IPC.
Below are details of first three contests along with their schedule and team registration link. The schedule for the rest of the contests in the series will be announced soon. Tentatively it should be in the new year. While making your team please make sure that you can stick around for a few months.
Note: Any team registered once for any one of the contests should continue with the same team till the end of the series of contests. Also, registering for any one of the contests makes you register for the rest of the contests in the series and you may take part in any of them.
| Contest Hosts | Contest Date | Start Time | Duration | Registration Link |
| Team SkullCrackers | Wednesday, 25 November, 2015 | 21:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | Click here |
| Team Blunderspride | Saturday, 28 November, 2015 | 21:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | |
| Team Enigma | Wednesday, 02 December, 2015 | 21:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | |
| Team Sataday | Sunday, 31st January, 2016 | 21:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | |
| Team Horcruxes | Wednesday, 3rd February, 2016 | 21:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | |
| Team ForTheWatch | Sunday, 7th February, 2016 | 14:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | |
| Team apqAW2 | Sunday, 28th February, 2016 | 20:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | |
| Team Akatsuki | Sunday, 6th March, 2016 | 20:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs | |
| Team Apocalypse | Wednesday, 9th March, 2016 | 20:00 hrs, IST | 5 hrs |
The results of respective legs of IPC's ICPC Preparatory Series have been calculated. The final list of shortlisted teams which have been moved to the final series have been announced below:
- List of shortlisted teams in 1st leg: https://www.codechef.com/download/IPC/2015/results_1.pdf
- List of shortlisted teams in 2nd leg: https://www.codechef.com/download/IPC/2015/results_2.pdf
- List of shortlisted teams in 3rd leg: https://www.codechef.com/download/IPC/2015/results_3.pdf
- Finals result: https://codechef.com/download/IPC/2015/final-season-result.pdf