The High School Programming Competition and the Creative Information Technology Product Contest for College and University Students (Hue-ICT Challenge) is an annual competition organized by the Information Technology and Telecommunications Association of Thua Thien Hue province in collaboration with the University of Sciences, Hue University, under the direction of the Provincial People's Committee of Thua Thien Hue. It has been elevated to a provincial-level competition since its inception in 2022. In 2024, the competition has received technical sponsorship and expertise from the Vietnam Association for Information Processing (VAIP) to elevate it to a national level in terms of scale and quality. The competition is also supported by the Department of Information and Communications, the Department of Education and Training, and the Information Technology Center of Thua Thien Hue province.
Associate Professor Dr. Vo Thanh Tung, Rector of the University of Sciences - Hue University, Co-Chair of the Organizing Committee of the Hue-ICT Challenge 2024, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony.
The Hue-ICT Challenge competition is organized to encourage the study movement, self-research, creativity enhancement, teamwork skills improvement, and international standard integration of high school students from secondary and high schools (collectively referred to as high schools); to guide students in choosing the IT field to develop their careers, meet the human resources market demand for the IT sector in Thua Thien Hue province, the Central Highlands-Central Coast region in particular, and the whole country in general; simultaneously create an environment to promote creative activities, research passion in the field of ICT and communication of college and university students in Thua Thien Hue province and nationwide; build bridges between government - businesses, associations, organizations, partners in the ICT and telecommunications sector - colleges, universities; discover meaningful, practical ideas or applications, thereby providing necessary support for refinement and participation in provincial, national creative product/idea competitions.
At the opening ceremony, the Organizing Committee of the Hue-ICT Challenge 2024 announced that after the registration period, they received 2,157 online registrations from candidates through the competition's website system (with two addresses: http://hue-ictc.huedita.vn/ and https://hue-ictc.husc.edu.vn/). Specifically: PRO CHANLLENGE category had 583 participants; NAÏ CHALLENE category had 1,021 participants, and JUNIOR CHALLENE category had 553 participants. The provinces and cities with the highest number of participants were: Thua Thien Hue (289 participants), Hanoi (268), Da Nang (169), Quang Tri (137), Nghe An (124), Dak Lak (124), Binh Dinh (100), among a total of 54 provinces and cities with participating students, surpassing 1,344 participants (in 2023) and 523 participants (in 2022).
The contestants participated in the Online Preliminary Round under strict supervision from the Organizing Committee and the Examination Board right after the Opening Ceremony.
Building on the success and experience of the two previous editions of the Hue-ICT Challenge, schools and students nationwide are now more aware of the competition. Particularly, this year, with the early collaboration of the Vietnam Informatics Association, it has contributed to the attraction and competition among participants and schools. There's a more serious commitment, interest, and investment from both participants and schools, aiming for interaction, exchange, and learning opportunities.
On March 10th, the Organizing Committee conducted a trial test session for contestants to familiarize themselves with the system. The Preliminary Round of the high school programming competition took place on the morning of March 17th, 2024. Contestants participated and took the online test on the system http://coder.husc.edu.vn. Using computers, contestants programmed solutions for the test questions according to the paper issued by the Organizing Committee, with a duration of 180 minutes.
Contestants will complete their tasks on their personal computers according to the allocation set by the Organizing Committee. The process involves reading and analyzing the problems, finding solutions, programming on personal computers to solve the questions, and testing the solutions with provided test cases or self-created ones. Contestants can choose to program solutions using one of four programming languages: Pascal, C/C++, Java, or Python. The test will be automatically scored for each question using an online judging system with specific data cases (test cases), each assigned a score determined by the Organizing Committee. Each question in the test will receive points based on the test cases it correctly solves. The overall score for the test is the sum of points earned across all questions.
The members of the Organizing Committee will be involved in directing and overseeing the organization's work in the online examination rooms.
On March 18th, the Organizing Committee will convene to select the contestants who have achieved high scores to proceed to the Finals, which are scheduled to take place on March 30th, 2024, at the University of Sciences - Hue University (77 Nguyen Hue, Phu Nhuan, Hue City).
The teachers will be responsible for supervising the system and assisting contestants during the login and examination process.
Alongside the continuous support from local government departments such as the Department of Information and Communications, the Department of Education and Training, and the Information Technology Center of Thua Thien Hue province, this year, the competition has received sponsorship from various businesses: VnLINK (Gold Sponsor); FPT Software, SMC Hue (Silver Sponsors); GOSU, PostMEDIA (Bronze Sponsors); Brycen Vietnam, Soft World Vietnam (Contributing Sponsors).