Crimson Crux

I was supposed to post this great news a few days ago, but a rash of offline events (LIRA, komiks, etc.) kept me from blogging. I got this from the UP CS Network mailing list (edited for clarity):

The First Philippine National Programming Competition (ACM-ICPC Philippines 2007) was held last October 20 at De La Salle Canlubang. Fifty teams from 24 different schools in the Philippines joined the contest, and we are proud to announce that out of the 50, 3 teams from UP Diliman, specifically from the Department of Computer Science, got into the Top 10! Well, that’s not all because one of our teams happened to be the ACM-ICPC PHILIPPINES 2007 CHAMPION!

Congratulations to

Marte Raphael Soliza
Ralph Rainier Pineda
Reginald Eli Deinla
ACM-ICPC PHILIPPINES 2007 CHAMPION

Ralph Justin Arce
Vanessa Rose Castro
James Wyson
ACM-ICPC PHILIPPINES 2007 FIFTH PLACER

John Kristofferson Sanchez
Wigi Vei Oliveros
Pio Ryan Lumongsod
ACM-ICPC 2007 NINTH PLACER

and, last but not the least, the Champion Coach who helped the UPD teams make it this far,

Sir Eric Tambasacan
UP DILIMAN TEAM COACH

Again, Congratulations!!!

Many thanks to Diwa del Mundo for pointing me toward Dr. Rafael Saldaña’s blog post on the official results of the prestigious competition. The top 10 teams and their schools:

1. University of the Philippines Diliman - “U.P Morons”
2. Ateneo de Manila University - “cxxC”
3. University of the Philippines Los Baños - “Heaven”
4. Ateneo de Manila University - “Team Automata”
5. University of the Philippines Diliman - “Team 43″
6. De La Salle University Manila - “DLSU-2″
7. Ateneo de Manila University - “Excessive Output”
8. De La Salle University Manila - “DLSU-1″
9. University of the Philippines Diliman - “Team 45″
10. Ateneo de Manila University - “eTeam”

You can check out Dr. Saldaña’s blog archives for the complete rankings and the programming problems given to the contestants.

Congrats to the aforementioned students for doing UP Diliman proud — this is a worthy advance gift for the school’s upcoming Centennial, and a great follow-up to UP ACM’s 4th international award last July and the recent Yahoo! Philippines Hack Day.

Mabuhay ang Unibersidad!


P.S. Do greet my dearest Ia Lucero a very happy birthday!

To quote the Inquirer article:

Five computer science students from the University of the Philippines Diliman showed their programming skills to executives of Internet giant Yahoo! in the first Philippines Hack Day contest.

Ralph Justin Arce and Wigi Vei Oliveros won the gold medal for their project called “YM Status Logger,” which tracks the Yahoo! Messenger user’s status.

Meanwhile, Abigail Yacat won silver for her “YM Conversation Distributor” project, which describes how a user can distribute private conversation to other users.

Bronze medalists were Vanessa Rose Castro and James Wyson who developed the “YM Thesis Mate,” helping thesis makers edit their documents collaboratively using YM.

All three winning projects used application programming interfaces (API) from Yahoo!

At least four of the students were my orgmates in UP ACM. Congratulations, guys!

Also, check out a video of the 1st Philippine Yahoo! Hack Day.

(Via Ia’s email.)

Academic Year 2004-2005: A newly resurrected Filipino student org captures two of five ACM Student Chapter Excellence Awards, representing Asia in the winners’ circle.

Academic Year 2005-2006: The org bags its third Chapter Excellence Award. Again, it is the sole Asian org in the quintet.

Academic Year 2006-2007: The UP ACM wins its fourth straight Chapter Excellence Award! Now, that’s consistency for you.

Here’s the email that the org’s current officers (I’m already an alumnus) received from ACM HQ (via the UP ACM blog):

I am pleased to inform you that the University of Philippines Student chapter has been chosen as a co-winner of the Outstanding Chapter Activities award. Congratulations!

The $500 check will be sent to the address you provided in your submission. Please let us know if we should send it somewhere else.

I noted above that you are a co-winner: we recognized two chapters in this category– the other winner is the University of Minho (Portugal).

Again, congratulations on your outstanding chapter program for the year. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Warm Regards,

Lauren Ryan
ACM Local Activities

You can read UP ACM’s winning essay here. (The previous years’ winning essays can be found on Corsarius.net.)

Congratulations, UP ACM! Mabuhay ang ‘Pinas at ang Unibersidad!

Just before the day ends, I have to greet my beloved alma mater, Happy Birthday!

There are three things that make this anniversary particularly special for me. First, because this 99th foundation day is quite the “Christmas Eve” of the centennial of the University of the Philippines, and Christmas Eves have always been as magical for me as Christmas Day itself.

Second, because 9 is my favorite number. Quite shallow a reason, eh?

And lastly, because I’m back in the University’s hallowed grounds, studying once again. No, I didn’t take a second undergraduate course (History? Journalism? Creative Writing?) or masterals in Computer Science. I’m three weeks into a six month-long poetry workshop under the tutelage of National Artist Rio Alma and the literary organization LIRA. (It’s this same workshop, with its mentally exhausting homeworks, that has pushed my blog posts into the brink of extinction.)

Let’s see if I’ll still be studying in UP when the much-awaited centennial rolls into the Diliman Republic. I know someone who’ll be close to the action, seeing that she lives inside the campus. Lucky person!

Want to glean the latest views and news from some of the best CS minds in the Philippines? (Or at the very least, peek into what makes the brains of these guys tick?) Then visit the newly launched UP DCS Blog Network, an aggregator for the blog posts of the students, faculty, and alumni of the University of the Philippines Department of Computer Science.

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It’s quite refreshing to see computer science blog posts like this that discuss sorting algorithms. In a time when many blogs churn out rehash after rehash of news items (or worse are simply splogs), an original, lengthy, and “deep and dirty” analysis of the shell sort algorithm is a treat to the mind.

The blog entry, titled Shellsort Optimization Project was written by a good friend of mine and former UP DCS coursemate. (I’m not sure if he wants his name to be divulged, as his own blog is written under his nickname.) He’s an intelligent fellow, and it shows through his post.

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Calling all UP DCS graduates! The Department of Computer Science of the University of the Philippines Diliman will be holding its first-ever Alumni Homecoming. The event will be held on February 24, 2007 at the College of Engineering Library and Computer Science Building.

Here’s the letter from the Department’s revered figure and current College Secretary, Prof. Evangel Quiwa:

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This just in (courtesy of an email message): the Philippine team for the Software Freedom Day 2006, through the University of the Philippines Linux Users’ Group (UnPLUG) has won in the 2006 Software Freedom Day competition.

UnPLUG won the Best Plan for FOSS deployment project on new server for community benefit, and will receive a high performance IBM server. The full list of winners can be found on the SFD website.

Congratulations to UnPLUG and the University! Modesty aside, I’m honored to have been an officer of the organization, even for just a few months. Other members of Team SFD Philippines ‘06 include the Philippine Linux Users’ Group, UP ACM, the UPD Department of Computer Science, Bluepoint, and Alpha Phi Omega.

From yesterday’s INQ7.net Infotech article:

The University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City, is getting a 500 million pesos budget to set up the country’s version of “Silicon Valley,” a ranking House leader said Monday.

Finally, the Philippines’ premier state university gets what it deserves.

Villafuerte said the Diliman hub would serve as the national center for research and development in the natural and applied sciences, and mathematics.

Let’s see what role the UP Diliman Department of Computer Science shall play should this Diliman Silicon Valley lift off in the (hopefully near) future.

[Ed. note: This is courtesy of the first, and possibly only, guest writer for Crimson Crux -- Ia Lucero of Qwerky. Take it away, Ia.]

I’ll be straight. This article caught my eye simply because it was about software. I saw several good things mentioned in it, including:

1. Favoring fresh graduates instead of requiring at least two years of experience
2. Being involved with open source applications
3. Founding an incubator firm with a Filipino name (”Simula Labs”)

But this one left a mark:

“Another Philippine-based software firm, Exist Engineering, is now working with local universities to design courses that will prepare fresh graduates for a software engineering job at the company.”

And I just had to protest. (more…)