Algorithm Community Workshop 2019

Algorithm Community Workshop, where we get together with our algorithm community, consisting of academics of top universities offering computer science courses and talented algorithm enthusiasts, all standing out for their accomplishments in the field, to discuss the upcoming algorithm programs and redesign the existing ones according to the ever-evolving needs of our participants, took place in inzva on December 28, 2019.

Before diving into this year’s busy schedule with the Coordinator of inzva Algorithm Programs Havva Yüksel, we reminisced about the last two years to compare our yearly resolutions to see how far we have come, and we were happy to see that together with our algorithm community, we succeeded in fulfilling all our goals for each year, in terms of decisions taken for expanding our algorithm community and increase the quality of education offered both in inzva and in university clubs.

Increased attention to our algorithm events never ceases to amaze us, especially for our Winter and Summer Camps, which were designed to be an intensive, educational camps bringing our community together twice a year to introduce new algorithm enthusiasts to our community as well as reunite with former and present participants.

The sessions were officially on with Burak Buğrul, our Algorithm Programs Technical Lead, who took the microphone to underline the importance of algorithm studies in both academia and industry and the way inzva approaches the curriculum in accordance with community’s needs. 

The session was followed by Yüksel’s presentation about the current state of algorithm community in Turkey in metrics and our yearly plan explaining how we run algorithm programs in inzva.

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Yasin Kaya, who is responsible for overviewing the way program is followed on Saturdays and updating the curriculum in line with the students’ progress, took the microphone to explain how does an ordinary algorithm day in inzva looks like and to show us the steps followed one by one.

This year we gave ear to our community and heard what the university representatives of our algorithm community thought about our Algo101 program run by student clubs, the program’s lead Kadir Emre Oto invited each club representative to the stage to talk about their local problems and initiated a brainstorm session to bring solutions. This section proved to be even more productive than we expected as both students and academics alike contributed to the discussion by offering various suggestions aimed to bring ideas specifically for their problems. 

Currently, inzva overview Algo101 in 7 different universities including Boğaziçi University, Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Middle East Technical University (METU), Abdullah Gül University (AGU), Koç University and Galatasaray University. We hope to increase the number of universities following Algo101 by the end of 2020.

This year, we had another first for algorithm programs in inzva: Algorithm Program Study Group, who is led by Kayacan Vesek. This study group was designed to evaluate the coding skills of our algorithm program graduates, who want to improve their algorithmic thinking skills and efficiency of their codes so that they can continue working on their competitive programming aspirations. The study group consist of either members of the teams competed in the Turkish Programming Contest 2019 or our previous graduates, who completed the program with top-notch scores.

Next was an open panel with our General Manager, Utku Yavuz, and one of our long-term supporters and the Head Judge of Turkish Programming Contest 2019, Prof. Dr. Tolga Can from the Middle East Technical University. While they talked about the past, present and future of the algorithm community in Turkey and recent popularity of algorithm studies in the industry, they remembered highlights of the 54-team national contest, where inzva made partnership with Can’s own university: Middle East Technical University. They also explained the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) and the way algorithm events held by inzva contributes to the community.

As METU passed down the torch for Turkish Programming Contest to Boğaziçi University in 2020, who we welcomed next was Asst. Prof Fatma Başak Aydemir along with our Community Manager Murat Karademir. They did not only review the previous year’s outcomes and scores, but also they answered some questions of the other academics and students regarding the future of national contest and outcomes that can be expected from Turkish Programming Contest 2020.

After the talks and panels, our guests were divided into two groups; some of them went into a classroom to talk about how to implement inzva’s algorithm programs for high schools and the rest joined a conversation about coaching system of the ICPC teams.

We were happy to welcome a group of the coaches who attended TPC 2019 with their university teams like Şükrü Bezen from METU, Uğur Uysal from ITU and Ahmet Soran from AGU.

Together with our growing community of algorithm enthusiast, we completed the Algorithm Community Workshop 2019. 

We thank everyone attended and, with their help, we are excited to fulfill this year's resolutions, listed below, by next year’s workshop!

  • We will hold the national programming contest. “Turkish Programming Contest 2020” with Boğaziçi University in mid-September.

  • We will prepare Algo101 cookbook that can be followed by student clubs  to reach out to more universities.

  • We will set up a coach and national problem setter committee to stay in touch all year round. 

  • We will publish a tutorial for beginning algorithm enthusiasts, who want to start competitive programming.

  • We will take the necessary steps to become the ICPC SEERC 2021 Istanbul site. For this purpose; we will execute an agreement with ICPC Foundation and take part in European Committee. Meanwhile, we will continue to inform public, NGOs and technology companies.

You can see a full list of attendees here.

You can see our PowerPoint presentation here.

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A  BEV Foundation project inzva is a non-profit hacker community organizing study and project groups as well as camps in the fields of AI and Algorithm; and gathering CS students, academics and professionals in Turkey.