U-M Team Victors advances to World Finals of International Collegiate Programming Contest

May 30, 2024
They placed in the top 17 out of 50 teams at the North American contest and will proceed to the world championship in September 2024.
Four men stand side by side in front of an ICPC banner facing the camera. All four are wearing yellow t-shirts and name tags on red lanyards. Three of the men are standing with arms crossed. The fourth subject is standing slightly behind the other three with his arms stretched up into the air in a victorious/celebratory stance.
Team Victors celebrates their top 17 placement in the ICPC North American contest, featuring (from left) Benyu Wang, Tuong Le, Prof. Euiwoong Lee, and Yeyuan Chen.

University of Michigan’s Team Victors placed 15th out of 50 teams at the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) North American Championship, which was held at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, FL from May 23-28.

“We are so proud of Team Victors for their accomplishments at the national championship,” said coach Prof. Euiwoong Lee. “The competition was tough this year, with many extremely talented teams participating, and our students more than held their own.”

The ICPC is an annual programming competition involving universities from around the world. Regional contests are held internationally across six continents, culminating in the World Finals, which this year will be held in Kazakhstan. Since its inception in 1970, the ICPC has grown into a global phenomenon; in the last year, there were over 58,000 student participants from more than 3,000 universities in 104 countries.

Team Victors, which consists of PhD student Yeyuan Chen, CS undergrad Tuong Le, and PhD student Benyu Wang, participated in the North American Championship after finishing second out of 84 teams at the East Central North American Regional Contest. In addition to Prof. Lee, the team’s coaches include Emeritus Prof. Kevin Compton, U-M Dearborn alum Dennis Matveyev, CSE alum Shang-En Huang, and current PhD student Yaowei Long.

Three men sit at a table with a black tablecloth. They are wearing yellow shirts with nametags on red lanyards. The man on the right sits at a a computer. The other two are writing and looking down at papers.
Team Victors, including (from left) Yeyuan Chen, Benyu Wang, and Tuong Le, completed several rounds of programming challenges, placing 15th out of 50 teams.

During each contest, teams of three are tasked with solving several programming problems in the span of just a few hours using a single computer. Winners are selected based on which team correctly solves the most problems in the least amount of time. 

Team Victors correctly solved seven out of the 13 problems, with a cumulative time of  910 points and landing 15th in a group of tightly placed winners. Having finished in the the top 17 out of 50 competitors, the Victors will advance to the ICPC World Finals in Astana, Kazakhstan in September 2024, where they will compete against teams from around the world in an even more challenging programming competition.

“Congratulations to Team Victors on qualifying for the World Finals,” said Matveyev, “ This is an impressive milestone and is something to be proud of.”

“The poise and skill the Victors demonstrated at the North American Championship is a testament to their hard work and our program’s strength,” said Compton. “We’re excited to see how they’ll perform on the world stage.”