Ryan Kupperman ’25, Donelle Leak ’25 and Isabel Gouveia ’24 produced video and social media content at the 46th and 47th International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals, the globe’s oldest, largest and most prestigious programming competition.
A contingent of Elon students, faculty and alumni attended April’s International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals in Luxor, Egypt, providing media coverage for one of the world’s most prestigious programming competitions.
This year’s event attracted approximately 2,000 international programmers from more than 50 countries dueling it out over real-world programming problems using creativity, mathematics and innovation. The competition was fierce and the brainpower was evident.
“Honestly, I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that geniuses compete in these competitions,” said Ryan Kupperman, an Elon journalism junior who traveled to the ICPC World Finals.
Among those in attendance were nine Elon students, faculty and alumni who supported the competition’s video and photography needs, providing content for ICPCNews outlets. Joining Kupperman were fellow Elon students Donelle Leak ’25, a strategic communications major, and Isabel Gouveia ’24, a journalism and political science double major. Additionally, School of Communications faculty members Amanda Sturgill and Randy Piland joined Elon alumni Bettina Johnson ’06 G’11, Oliver Fischer ’19, Lee McPhatter G’18 and Chris Kirkham G’12 to also support the event’s media coverage.
Interestingly, members of the Elon community have been involved with ICPC every year since at least 2010, both for the North American Championships and the World Finals.
During this year’s ICPC competitions, teams had five hours to solve as many as a dozen complicated programming problems with real-world applications. The team that solved the most problems in the shortest amount of time won.
The Luxor competition, held at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport, was a doubleheader hosting both the 46th and 47th ICPC World Finals. Due to a gap during the COVID-19 pandemic, two ICPC championships were hosted simultaneously. A team representing Peking University won the 46th World Finals, with a cohort from National Research University Higher School of Economics capturing the title at the 47th World Finals.
Having served as managing editor of ElonNewsNetwork.com, Kupperman is familiar with deadline pressure, and the programming competition had a similar feel to a newsroom under a time crunch.
“These competitions last five hours and these teams are working furiously to solve as many of these complex computer problems as they can,” the junior said. “The kicker is only one person is allowed to touch the keyboard at any given time. So, they have to work together to collaborate and solve these problems. The vibe was intense, but exciting. Yet, everyone was so happy to be there. Having spoken with a lot of the teams, they were really excited to attend and compete.”
Kupperman shot video, conducted interviews, and worked closely with editors and photographers to chronicle the contest’s results. Leak focused primarily on social media coverage, capturing, creating and posting content on the ICPCNews accounts. Here is an example of Leak’s work on Instagram.
Leak said she is immensely proud of her content for the Cleo the Camel social media takeover she coordinated with fellow members of the ICPCNews team. As part of the campaign, social media followers were invited to leave a comment with the name of the university they wanted to see, and Leak would snap photographs of the team at work.
“It was really cool to capture the teams working on the contest floor and see our Facebook followers engaged with the contest from afar,” she said.
Kupperman, too, enjoyed the camaraderie he built with his ICPCNews colleagues, especially the Elon alumni in Luxor.
“I had an amazing time getting to know them, working with them and learning from them,” Kupperman said. “They had a lot to teach us about the different cameras that we were using and the different shots that they were looking for. It was great hands-on experience. And they were all really good people. I’m so glad that I got to meet them.”
Admittedly, the competition’s location was a draw for the Elon students, alumni and faculty who attended. Luxor is home to several of the country’s most recognizable temples, tombs and monuments, which the group got to see up close. Leak and Kupperman, who both have experience traveling abroad, jumped at the opportunity to travel to Africa.
“As a tourist, highlights of the trip included seeing the tombs at the Valley of the Kings – and riding a camel for the first time,” Leak said. Fittingly, one can’t ride a camel without getting photographic proof – see images below.
Kazakhstan will host the 2024 ICPC World Finals in September.
About the ICPC
The International Collegiate Programming Contest is the oldest, largest and most prestigious university-level algorithmic programming contest in the world. Each year, some 50,000 students from more than 3,000 universities across more than 100 countries compete in regional competitions to earn a spot at the World Finals.