“There’s a new University of Michigan team on campus. It held tryouts, signed on the three top players, has a roster of coaches, and practices weekly.

But it will be brains – not brawn – that determine if this team is a winner.

The team is called The Mighty Hackers and it left Saturday for the Czech Republic for the World Finals of an international competition in computer programming.

This Olympics of the tech world pits 73 teams of college software programmers from all corners of the world against one another in a contest where speed counts as much as acumen. Teams will come from all continents but Antarctica.

The Mighty Hackers are U-M computer science undergrads Jim McCann, Nuttapong Chentanez and Galen Elias.

They won a berth in the international competition when they placed fourth out of 127 teams in a regional contest in Ashland, Ohio, in November. Since then, they’ve been meeting weekly to practice for the international contest, sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery. ..

> AANews: “‘Mighty Hackers’ take on world in computer contest”
> See also this Daily article from December: “Computing team wins seat in global contest”

Author: Rob