July 2022 - KenkoGeek

Meet the 2022 Code Jam World Finalists!

Posted by Julia DeLorenzo, Program Manager, Coding Competitions

The Code Jam World Finals returns!

Over the past several months, participants have worked their way through multiple rounds of algorithmic coding challenges, and solved some of the most challenging competitive programming problems. The field has been narrowed down from tens of thousands of participants, to the top competitors who will face off at the World Finals on August 5th, 2022.

Join us 16:30 UTC for a livestream to see which one of these finalists will be crowned the Code Jam 2022 World Champion, winning the grand prize of $15,000 USD!

Here are this year’s finalists sharing their favorite music genres, tips, fun facts, and more.

This year’s Code Jam World Finalists are:

	Antonio Molina Lovett Handle: y0105w49 What’s your favorite music to listen to while coding? “Always looping the Vicious Delicious album by Infected Mushroom.”
	Yuhao Du Handle: xll114514 Code Jam claim to fame: This is Yuhao’s second time at the Code Jam World Finals, previously competing in the 2021 World Finals.
	Benjamin Qi Handle: Benq What’s your favorite 2022 Code Jam Problem? “Qualification Round – Twisty Little Passages. First time I used importance sampling in a contest!”
	Sangsoo Park Handle: molamola What does your handle mean? “1. I personally like sunfish 🙂 2. I like the way it sounds. 3. Mola is pronounced “몰라” in Korean, which means “I don’t know”.”
	Daniel Rutschmann Handle: dacin21 What’s the best coding competition advice you’ve ever received? “Have fun and always try to challenge yourself by solving problems that seem too difficult at first.”
	Mingyang Deng Handle: CauchySheep What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “I love random walking.”
	Gennady Korotkevich Handle: Gennady.Korotkevich What’s your favorite 2022 Code Jam Problem? “Saving the Jelly from Round 2 took the most creativity to solve!”
	Alexander Golovanov Handle: Golovanov399 What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “I have 11 musical instruments, most of which I can only play on a level “may accompany in a song I know.”
	Andrew He Handle: ecnerwala Code Jam claim to fame: This will be Andrew’s fourth time competing in the Code Jam World Finals, having competed in 2019, 2020, and 2021 previously.
	Aleksei Esin Handle: ImBarD What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “I love bungee jumping.”
	Lingyu Jiang Handle: jiangly What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? This is Lingyu’s first time competing in the Code Jam World Finals.
	Kevin Sun Handle: ksun48 Code Jam claim to fame: This will be Kevin’s third time competing in the Code Jam World Finals, having competed in 2019 and 2020 previously.
	Lukas Michel Handle: lumibons What does your handle mean? “It’s a combination of letters from my name and the name of the village where I grew up.”
	Matvii Aslandukov Handle: BigBag What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “I enjoy playing sports such as tennis, table tennis, volleyball, football, as well as playing piano and guitar.”
	Borys Minaiev Handle: qwerty787788 What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “A year ago I started doing buildering and we created a chat with just 3 people in it. Now there are almost 100 participants. Who could imagine it would grow so fast?”
	Yahor Dubovik Handle: mhg What’s your favorite music to listen to while coding? “Red Hot Chilli Peppers.”
	Mateusz Radecki Handle: Radewoosh What’s the best coding competition advice you’ve ever received? “Becoming good isn’t about creating a chance to solve a problem. It’s about removing a chance to not solve a problem.”
	Nikolay Kalinin Handle: KalininN What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “I’m an experimentalist in laser physics, also I love traveling and photography.”
	Simon Lindholm Handle: simonlindholm What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “I’ve been really into the Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge recently, and N64 game decompilation. Also, mushroom hunting.”
	Kento Nikaido Handle: Snuke What’s an interesting and fun fact about yourself? “I’m a cat. My recent hobby is Sed Puzzle”
	Tiancheng Lou Handle: ACRushTC Code Jam claim to fame: This will be Tiancheng’s eighth Code Jam World Finals, having previously competed in the World Finals in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2019, 2021.
	Aleksei Daniliuk Handle: Um_nik What’s your favorite 2022 Code Jam Problem? “I, O Bot from Round 2, because it was actually a competitive programming problem”
	Yuta Takaya Handle: yutaka1999 What’s your favorite 2022 Code Jam Problem? “Saving the Jelly. It is mainly because I solved it in the last five minutes of the contest.”
	Konstantin Semenov Handle: zemen Code Jam claim to fame: This will be Konstantin’s third Code Jam World Finals, having previously competed in the World Finals in 2017 and 2018.

Watch the Code Jam World Finals Livestream

Join us on August 5 at 16:30 UTC for a livestream of the Code Jam 2022 World Finals.

Watch all the action unfold as the Code Jam team broadcasts live from Google New York. You’ll have an opportunity to hear from our team, see Code Jam engineers explain the problems from the round, and watch live as we reveal the scoreboard and announce this year’s winners!

At the end, one of these finalists will be crowned the Code Jam 2022 World Champion, winning the grand prize of $15,000 USD. Good luck to all the finalists and as always, happy coding!

RandoTek: Traveling around Tunisia to share technical knowledge

Posted by Salim Abid, Regional Lead. Middle East & North Africa, Google Developers

Training young Tunisian developers in remote areas

On weekends, the volunteers would travel for hours to new regions, sometimes on bumpy roads and on crowded, rickety buses. Their purpose? To inspire others around the country and teach them about new technologies. When the members of two Google Developer Groups (GDG) in the Beja and Sousse regions of Tunisia came together to address the challenge that many of their fellow Tunisian citizens had limited access to technology. They decided to make a difference by launching Randotek, a program in Tunisia to help train young developers that gets its name from the French word randonne, which means to hike.

Many community members from these chapters, including Alaedeen Eloueryemmi of GDG Sousse and Yasmina Rebai of GDG Beja, support the initiative. Alaedeen, a software engineer, joined GDG Sousse in 2021, after graduating from university, where he co-founded the ESSTHS Google Developer Student Club. Yasmina joined GDG Beja at the suggestions of a software engineer friend.

Sharing technology knowledge and building community

The origin story for GDG RandoTek goes back to January 2022, when Alaedeen gave a talk at DevFest Beja. During his talk, he and the other members of the GDG Beja and GDG Sousse teams noticed many students couldn’t follow his talk because of their lack of familiarity with Google technologies. Acknowledging that many of their fellow Tunisian citizens need more access to technology, the GDG RandoTek volunteers began teaching workshops in February 2022.

“We wanted to give others an overview of the community and the new technologies out there,” says Alaedeen. “We want to build a strong community of developers and allow people to achieve their dreams. In Tunisia, people don’t always have access to courses or materials, so we bring that to them.”

Positive impacts for the community

To date, the program generated positive impacts, in Tunisia including:

The organizers hosted nine sessions for over 412 developers in eight regions of Tunisia and five cities.
The community initiative has run many four-hour workshops on Google technologies including Flutter; Go; Angular; progressive web apps; AI and machine learning; TensorFlow; Google Cloud Platform; and DevOps.
Attendees expressed interest in learning more about specific technologies, like Flutter and Cloud, and in joining a GDG group.
GDG RandoTek members continue to be asked to give additional workshops, online and in-person, making it a powerful learning experience for them as well.

Building a tech community in Tunisia

The GDG RandoTek organizers note that as more young developers receive training on various technologies, they will feel inspired to form new developer communities in their own local area. The more of those types of groups there are, the easier it will be to reach even more people in Tunisia. “That’s what we want to spread in Tunisia–to have more than one GDSC in every region, and more than one chapter in every place,” says Yasmina. The RandoTek team remains motivated to share knowledge and expand the community with new members.

“What we wanted to do during this program is to share the knowledge,” says Alaedeen. “Share the spirit of community work and get together and learn stuff.” The organizers all seem to share a mutual admiration for helping others. “Seeing how the world evolves each day and the need for technologies in our daily life, I would advise anyone, especially students, to learn as much technology as possible because they’re going to use them someday, somehow,” Yasmina says.

What’s next for GDG RandoTek in Tunisia

For organizers like Aladeen, Yasmina, and their collaborators, the GDG community unlocks potential, creates leaders, and helps people relate to each other through technology. It creates a way to motivate others to become teachers and share technical knowledge and build skills.

“For me, if it wasn’t for GDG, I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” says Alaedeen. “It improved my career, my management skills, and my technical skills, and I want everyone to have that opportunity.”

Visit the Google Developer Groups page and find out how to join a Google Developer Community near you!

Monthly Archives: July 2022

The Code Jam World Finals returns!

This year’s Code Jam World Finalists are:

Antonio Molina Lovett

Yuhao Du

Benjamin Qi

Sangsoo Park

Daniel Rutschmann

Mingyang Deng

Gennady Korotkevich

Alexander Golovanov

Andrew He

Aleksei Esin

Lingyu Jiang

Kevin Sun

Lukas Michel

Matvii Aslandukov

Borys Minaiev

Yahor Dubovik

Mateusz Radecki

Nikolay Kalinin

Simon Lindholm

Kento Nikaido

Tiancheng Lou

Aleksei Daniliuk

Yuta Takaya

Konstantin Semenov