Amir Najjar Scores Second Prize at the International Collegiate Programming Contest

As we are living in an era of advanced technology where everything is reachable at our fingertips, this constant evolution that has led to so many mind-blowing discoveries, actually presents new technical challenges to overcome. Amir Najjar an LAU MEPI TL Sophomore student in Computer Science, chose to challenge himself within his field of study by participating in the LAU Collegiate Programming Contest (LAUCPC), an algorithmic programming contest for college students as part of the ICPC Foundation International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) that took place at Sage Hall 110, at the LAU Beirut campus on March 23, 2019.

The ICPC aims at tackling most real-world problems when it comes to information technology, inviting the computer savvy-minded youth to address these problems, finding adequate solutions and translating them into programming language. Divided into a team of three, Najjar along with two other students, were given a series of ten problems from the domain of computing and were asked to come up with innovative related solutions within a limited period of time.

Using his strong pre-requisite computing practices and enjoying strong analytical thinking, Najjar and his colleagues managed to solve seven out of the ten proposed problems within record-breaking time: 300 minutes. The contest result came satisfactory as Najjar was ranked second and therefore was qualified to participate in the contest on the National level: The Lebanese Collegiate Programming Contest (LCPC)

This experience was rewarding to Najjar on different levels: “It grew in me the spirit of competition and fostered the sense of team work and collaboration” Najjar says and attributes his victory to MEPI-TL Program that helped him equip himself with leadership skills to take adequate actions and decisions when it comes to problems solving.