After a week without blogging, I want to inform you my activity.
I am currently representing STT Telkom on ACM ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest) Asia Regional 2007 at National University of Singapore. We took off yesterday morning to Batam and enjoyed one-day sight-seeing there before taking a ferry-ride to Singapore. This morning we met with other contestants from South East Asian and East Asian countries for practice sessions and some public lectures at National University of Singapore - School of Computing campus.
We do not set any target, since this is our first participation in such a big event. Meanwhile, there are contestants from some universities in some countries like Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, etc. that surely are more experienced than us and more prepared for this contest. They have professional coaches, great teamwork, and much experience from past competitions. Those are things that we do not have (it is Arif with me in the photo below).
Just like Imagine Cup that is sponsored by Microsoft, ACM ICPC is also sponsored by big companies, such as IBM and Lenovo. No wonder if all contestants were asked to attend a lecture today about IBM's RUP (Rational Unified Process). Lenovo also demonstrated their products and offered SGD 3000 (about Rp 20 million)-valued laptops as additional prizes for the winner of this contest. Moreover, National University of Singapore also gives priorities for the winners to receive scholarships for continuing their studies in Computer Science and Information System PhD. programs there.
The contest starts tomorrow. We will strive for best. Hopefully God will be kind enough to give me miraculous touch so that Indonesia can win this contest and I get the laptop (dream on...).