The IEEEXTREME Programming Challenge is an annual convention for all young and aspiring programmers from all around the world. Advised and proctored by an IEEE member, and typically hosted by an IEEE student chapter, a number of Electrical and Software Engineering students decided to take on the challenge. Seven teams of students were formed and have actively participated. Students from the Software Engineering and Electrical Engineering programs included Raneem Bayounis, Sara AlShagroud, Haifa Al Nashmi, Layan Al Akeel, Lian Al Hedaithy, Lina AlAttas, Talal AlEissa, Abdulrahman AlRayes, Fahd Alhobayeb, Faisal Yousef, Naif Bin Khathlan, Mohammad Alsaadoun, and Majed Alshahwan
The event has been advised, by Eng. Ahmed Hamiduldeen, lecturer at the Department of Electrical Engineering. “IEEEXTREME is an opportunity for students to test their programming, problem solving, and team skills within defined constraints. Competing live with teams from around the world takes initiative, and we are happy that students from Alfaisal University made teams and spent the 24 hours coding.”, said Eng. Hamidalddin
The participating teams have been proctored by Dr. Areej Al – Wabil, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Research Centre at Al – Faisal University and faculty member at the department of Software Engineering, and Dr. Basil Dudin, faculty member at the Department of Software Engineering. Dr. Al – Wabil stressed the importance of participating in time – bound competitive events for their identification of exceptional programmers and providing them with an opportunity to code together and learn from each other. Dr. Dudin, on the other hand, stressed on the importance of such events by pointing out to their importance in shaping students’ programming skills to be ready for challenging and time sensitive agile software development projects.
Such event and other similar hackathons, are instilling in young engineers a sense of life after school, and the feeling that they can accomplish anything. Students often emphasize how hackathons are an ideal way to test-drive the experience of working at a start-up before committing to a career path.
Teams that have participated from Alfaisal University ranked 19-49 at the country-level rankings in the competition, which was within the range of 1121-2366 in the global ranking of 5570 teams. Students from the Software Engineering program included .., … and … Students from the Electrical Engineering program included … and ..
Although Alfaisal Teams may not have won any prizes in their first year of participation, their collaborative spirit in tackling IEEEXTREME’s problems was impressive. Hackathon-goers highlighted that what motivated them is not the awards, but rather the fact that these time-bound challenges force them to learn new tech skills and they enjoy connecting with like-minded students from across the world — “It’s a hybrid space full of doers.”
The College of Engineering will be holding a ceremony on Monday, November 1st 2021, where all participants will be awarded certificates of appreciation by the Dean of the College, Dr. Muhammad Anan, as a gesture of gratitude and acknowledgement of these students’ efforts in promoting the College and its vision of creating effective analytical thinkers.
Congratulations to all those students who have participated in this global event for the first time. The College of Engineering will always view such exceptional candidates with pride and will continue its promise to provide the highest level of support to help them develop their programming skills further and be ready for bigger challenges. Thank you very much our Electrical and Software Engineering students for continuing to rock the stars!
