On Thursday, November 1, Minsk, the capital of Belarus hosted the quarterfinals of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) World Student Team Programming Contest of Northern Eurasia region, and the victory was secured by the University of Latvia student team – Aleksejs Zajakins, Kristaps Čivkulis and Aleksandrs Zajakins.

The team LU1 – the 4th year student of the Faculty of Computer Science, 2017 competition finalist Aleksejs Zajakins, the 1st year student of the Faculty of Computer Science, 2018 competition finalist Kristaps Čivkulis and the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Aleksandrs Zajakins – within five hours solved 11 of the 12 exercises and won the quarterfinals. To date, the teams of the University of Latvia had won quarterfinals once – in 2005, when the UL was represented by Rihards Opmanis, Uldis Barbans and Aleksandrs Belovs. “The team LU1 commenced the contest at a slow pace – immediately began to focus on the more difficult tasks and lost some time, while at the Belarusian university teams began by solving several of the easier exercises and assumed leadership. In the first half of the contest, the leading UL team was LU2, but subsequently this team got stuck in solving more complex exercises. Within the last hour, the LU1 team managed to solve two difficult exercises, thus overtaking all the Belarusian universities. The greatest surprise was the team LU3, which, like LU2, solved seven exercises, and in the last hour submitted a solution of another exercise, however, with no success. Until the very end of the contest, the intrigue, which would be the second team to go to the semifinals, remained,” reflects the coach, Prof. Guntis Arnicāns. The second strongest UL team – the 4th year student of the Faculty of Computer Science, 2017 competition finalist Pēteris Pakalns, the Master’s programme 1st year student of the Faculty of Computer Science, 2018 competition finalist Vladislavs Kļevickis, and the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Optometry Ingus Jānis Pretkalniņš – solved 7 exercises and took the 8th place. During the last hour, the team attempted to solve two more exercises, but the efforts did not meet with success.  A very good performance was shown by the team LU3 – the 1st year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Roberts Leonārs Svarinskis, the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Aleksejs Jeļisejevs and the 3rd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Elvis Liepiņš. The team also solved seven exercises and during the last hour worked at another one, however, did not arrive at the solution, thus receiving the 15th place and conceded the ticket to semifinals to the team LU2. The team LU6 also achieved good result, represented by the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Valters Mednis, the 1st year student of the Faculty of Humanities Uko Kokņevičs and the 1st year student of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Optometry Maksims Pogumirskis, who attained the 28th place with five solved exercises. Five exercises were solved, only taking slightly more time by the team LU4 – the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Andis Draguns, the 4th year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Dārta Rituma and – the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Viktors Lipskis. The team LU5 – the 4th year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Ansis Zvirbulis, the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Ieva Pakalna and the 2nd year student of the Faculty of Computer Science Elīza Gaile – solved four exercises and took the 37th place.
  • <link https: acm.bsu.by contests standings>Chart of results
* – denotes the teams participating in the contest outside the competition (unofficially).  Two of the strongest University of Latvia teams (LU1 and LU2) will compete in a semifinals to be held on December 2 St. Petersburg, Russia to win the place in final competition that will be conducted at the beginning of April in Portugal. The UL teams were prepared for the contest by Guntis Arnicāns, Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science, and researcher Jevgēnijs Vihrovs. The UL also participated in preparing the exercises for quarterfinals, represented by Jevgēnijs Vihrovs, Nikita Larka, Krišjānis Prūsis. Participation of the UL student teams in the contest is sponsored by AS “Emergn”, SIA “EazyOne”, SIA „Datakom”, AS "RIX Technologies", SIA “TestDevLab”, SIA “ZZ Dats”, VISMA group enterprises in Latvia, SIA "whiteCryption", American Latvian community representing “Friends of the University of Latvia” (501(c)(3) charity) – Latvian Honorary Consul in Illinois Roberts Blumbergs, Latvian Honorary Consul in Michigan Andris Lācis and Galenieks family. The donations are administered by the University of Latvia Foundation and Riga Technical University Development Fund.   The World Student Team Programming Contest (ACM ICPC) is the most long-standing and prestigious student programming competition worldwide. In excess of 50 000 students representing over 3000 universities from more than 100 countries participate in this context every year. 

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