BOLIVAR, MO – Southwest Baptist University will host the 34th annual IBM-sponsored Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest also known as The Battle of the Brains on Saturday, Oct. 24, in the Wheeler Science Building on the Bolivar campus.
“The Battle of the Brains is one of the most demanding intellectual challenges,” said Alan Ganek, chief technology officer and vice president of strategy for business and technology at IBM Software Group. “These students possess an amazing talent to solve pressing issues involving transportation, energy, water, climate, and health. They are a generation with the ability to change the very way of life on planet Earth.”
Dr. Tim DeClue, SBU chair and professor of computer and information sciences, is excited to see such a prestigious contest come to campus.
“Only the biggest and the best can handle the responsibility of hosting this event. You have to have a well-respected program.”
The all-day event will feature teams of three students from surrounding colleges including Missouri State University, College of the Ozarks, and University of Missouri-Rolla. Teams will use their programming skills and rely on their mental endurance to solve complex, real world problems under a grueling deadline.
The mid-central division includes the states of Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennesse. During the day on Oct. 24, there will be several sites that will be competing and submitting the work done to a central site where it will be graded.
One hundred regional winners from around the globe will meet in Harbin, China, on Feb. 1-6, 2010, where they will compete for awards, scholarship, prizes, and bragging rights to the “world’s smartest trophy.”
Although graduate students are allowed to compete, SBU allows its undergraduate students to go head to head with these upper classmen.
“We tend to do relatively well in our region,” said DeClue. “We tend to be the top evangelical Christian university in our region.”
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Southwest Baptist University is a leader among private universities in truly integrating Christ-centered academic pursuits with comprehensive professional programs at an affordable price. Since 1878, the faculty and staff have created a caring, academic community to prepare students to be servant leaders in a global society. The University has been named one of America’s Best Christian Colleges® for 13 consecutive years, one of America’s 100 Best College Buys® for 14 consecutive years, and it has been named among institutions with America’s Best College Scholarships ® for the past three years by Institutional Research and Evaluation, Inc. For more information, visit www.SBUniv.edu.
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