FOUR students from the Chinese University's (CU) department of computer science have gone to Phoenix, Arizona, to compete in the ''Olympics of computer programming''.
The International Collegiate Programming Contest, organised by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), is designed to test the contestants' team work and ability to program the computer to solve problems.
The event is part of the ACM's annual convention and is the biggest competition of its kind. It is being sponsored by Microsoft, which has put up a total of US$18,000 in prize money.
Dr Jimmy Lee, lecturer of Computer Science at CU said: ''This is like the Olympics of computer programming, and we certainly hope the team can do well.'' The CU team of Lou Chi-wai, Chan Wai-wai, Won Hon-wing, Tong Ka-leung, and coach Dr Hsu Sui-chi beat teams from Hong Kong University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, City Polytechnic, Hong Kong Polytechnic, Baptist College and Lingnan, inthe ACM (Hong Kong chapter) contest held in July.
It was then able to automatically claim one of the Far East region's two places in the finals, because Taiwan was the only other chapter in the region to put forward a team.
The team's members are the first Hong Kong representatives to reach the finals of the competition, which features a total of 35 teams, including one from Harvard.