Pole wins Google Code Jam

Marek Cygan, a student at Warsaw University, is the grand prize winner of the 2005 Google Code Jam, Google's annual computer programming competition. Cygan competed against 14,500 registrants from around the world.

"It's an honor to host the most talented computer programmers in the world," said Alan Eustace, vice president, Engineering and Research, Google Inc. "With more than twice as many participants in the Google Code Jam this year, competition was fierce. Congratulations to Marek and all of our finalists."

This is the third year of the Google Code Jam, which is produced in conjunction with TopCoder, the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development. The Google Code Jam is a celebration of the art of computer science, and signals to programmers everywhere the value Google places on excellent coding.

The competition, which began August 22, attracted 14,500 participants from more than 32 countries. All entrants participated in an initial qualification round with 500 progressing to the second round. The top 100 scorers from round two were brought to Google for the finals. Programming in the competition can be done in Java, C++, C# or VB.NET languages.

If you're wondering why Tomek Czajka, the one who once won three competitions of the TopCoder series in a row, was nowhere to be found on the list of this year's finalists, that's because Google employees weren't allowed to participate.

source: http://www.google.com/press