A team of graduate students representing Queen's School of Computing has placed 10^th out of 700, and top amongst all Canadian participants, in an international, on-line computer programming competition.

Held on Oct. 24, the IEEEXtreme global challenge involved teams from 40 countries competing to solve a set of programming problems within 24 hours. The Queen's team included students Mahmoud Ouda and Sharief Oteafy from the School of Computing and Hatem Abou-zeid from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

"This was very much a team effort, and we're all really happy about our achievement," says Mr. Ouda, a master's candidate in the Telecommunications Research Lab and former world finalist in the prestigious ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. "With more preparation, we hope to do even better next year."

The School of Computing team used Queen's motto, Sapientia et Doctrina Stabilitas ("wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times") as their name. Computing Professor Hossam Hassanein provided support, and alumnus Dr. Y Hung Tam acted as proctor during the 24-hour, non-stop contest.

Sponsored by IEEE, the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology, competition results are posted online.