Hi everyone If you have some spare time in your summer vacation, you might want to have a look at Google Code Jam 2008. I think it sounds really cool. Here is a brief description from their website http://code.google.com/codejam/ About Code Jam. Do you enjoy solving tough problems and grappling with technical challenges? Then enter Google Code Jam! Google Code Jam is a coding competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you program in the coding language and development environment of your choice. Google Code Jam begins in July and continues in August, when you will compete in online rounds against contestants from around the world. The Top 500 participants will advance to onsite competitions at a local Google office to compete against those in their region (Asia Pacific; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and the Americas). The Top 100 will participate in the final round at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California on Friday, November 14. Don't be left out! Make sure to register between June 17 and July 17, and show your coding creativity in Google Code Jam. Also there will be some other programming contests in the near future. The first is this Saturday: Waterloo Local Spring Contest 2008, June 21 from 11.00-14.00 on the UVA online judge, http://icpcres.ecs.baylor.edu/onlinejudge/ We have previously used problems from older Waterloo programming contest for the local contest at DAIMI. The contest lasts 3 hours and usually consists of some nice problems (although some of them can be quite hard). Last but not least here is a link to a manually updated programming contest calendar: http://www.algorithmist.com/index.php/Programming_Contest_Calendar Regards, Mark