Registration for Code Jam 2020 is open

Register here

Schedule
Round, Start to End (Singapore Time), Duration
Qualification Round - 4 Apr (Sat) 7 am to 5 Apr (Sun) 10 am, 27 hrs
Round 1A - 11 Apr (Sat) 9 am to 11.30 am, 2 hrs 30 mins
Round 1B - 20 Apr (Mon) 12 am to 2.30 am, 2 hrs 30 mins
Round 1C - 2 May (Sat) 5 pm to 7.30 pm, 2 hrs 30 mins
Round 2 - 16 May (Sat) 10 pm to 17 May (Sun) 12.30 am, 2 hrs 30 mins
Round 3 - 6 Jun (Sat) 10 pm to 7 Jun (Sun) 12.30 am, 2 hrs 30 mins
World Finals - 7 Aug (Fri) 6.30 pm to 10.30 pm, 4 hrs

Code Jam 2019:
Gennady Korotkevich Wins Google Code Jam For The Sixth Time
Once again, ITMO PhD Student Gennady Korotkevich won the Google Code Jam international competition. This time, the event took place in San Francisco on August 9. This was the sixth victory in the programmer’s winning streak. Apart from Gennady, the Japanese contestant Makoto Soejima and the contest’s first-timer Andrew He from MIT got into the top-3. Every year, over 50,000 programmers from all over the world participate in Google Code Jam, with only 25 making it to the finals. Among the latter were also ITMO’s students Boris Minaev and Evgeny Kaplun.

Google Code Jam, that has been conducted annually since 2003, is considered to be among the world’s largest programming competitions: the event brings together over 50,000 programmers, as participation is open to all.

The selection for the final round involves several stages. After submitting applications, participants take part in the qualification round that takes about a day. In order to pass, one has to get a specific number of points. Then, programmers participate in a series of three rounds, each of which takes place on a separate date and lasts for two and a half hours. Only 25 contestants remain after this online selection, and are invited to the on-site round the location of which changes every year. For example, last year’s Google Code Jam finals took place in Toronto, Canada, and this time, the venue was in San-Francisco, USA. The prize for winning the contest is 15,000 USD.

This year, Gennady Korotkevich, two-time winner of ACM ICPC (2013 and 2015), five-time winner of Yandex.Algorithm, as well as winner and runner-up of many other international contests, got first place for the 6th time. This achievement is yet to be repeated by any other of Google Code Jam participant.

Gennady got 143 points, having gotten ahead of Makoto Soejima from Japan and Andrew He, an MIT student, who got 121 points each. Two other ITMO graduates also got into the contest’s finals: Boris Minaev, another winner of 2015’s ICPC, with 56 points, and Evgeny Kaplun with 54 points.

We’d like to add that the competition involves solving a set of algorithmic problems within a fixed period of time. Since last year, the code is tested on the company’s computers. The participants have to use one of the following programming languages: Bash, C, C++, C# (mono), Go, Haskell (ghc), Java 8, Javascript (nodejs), Python 2, Python 3, PHP, and Ruby.

This time, the final round involved six tasks with two parts each. The first was the easier one, as it can be solved with a simpler algorithm, and the programmers face less restrictions. Upon completing it, the contestants could learn whether it was correct right on the spot, and do it over if it wasn’t. The second part called for a more complex algorithms. What’s more, the participants only learned their results during the award ceremony. The time spent on solving the tasks also affected the score.

Gennady Korotkevich completed four of the six tasks, that is, both parts of the four tasks. In addition, he successfully solved the first part of the fifth problem and submitted a more efficient solution to it.

PhD Applications and Admission Results

This post is inspired by Mathematics GRE forum and Grad Cafe forum.

Undergrad Institution: Cambridge University
Major: Math
BA and MMath (in progress)
GPA for BA: 96%

GRE Revised General Test (taken in Sep 2019):
Quantitative Reasoning: 170 (96%)
Verbal Reasoning: 159 (83%)
Writing: 4.5 (81%)

GRE Subject Test (taken in Sep 2019):
Mathematics: 970 (99%)

Program Applying: Pure Math PhD

Applied to:
Caltech: Accepted on 4 Feb
Cambridge: Accepted on 12 Feb, Declined on 6 Mar
MIT: Waitlisted on 6 Feb
Princeton: Rejected on 31 Jan
Stanford: Waitlisted on 2 Mar
Yale: Accepted on 3 Feb

Taiwan's Taichung & Taipei Trip 6 to 13 Feb 2020

日月潭

著名的阿嫲茶叶蛋

九族文化村

天香草莓园

中社花市

贝壳庙

淡水渔人码头

渔人码头的黄昏

台中后里花博园区灯会

象山

十份

火车路放天灯

猫空

猫空杏花村

阳明山

Offer Letter from Caltech

Offer Letter from Yale

NUSH Alumni CNY Gathering in Cambridge on 26 January 2020

Hack & Roll 2020

Pang Wen Yuen, Chang Si Yuan, Wang Jianzhi and Lim Li formed a team to take part in Hack & Roll 2020 from 18 to 19 January 2020, held at NUS.

They came in Top 8 Teams, each member winning a Google Home Mini and Kindle Paperwhite 4.

NUS 2019/2020 Semester 2 Modules

Lim Li is taking the following modules this semester:

CS3235 Computer Security
CS3243 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
CS4231 Parallel and Distributed Algorithms
LAJ2201 Japanese 2
MA2101S Linear Algebra II (S)
MA3233 Combinatorics and Graphs II
PC1432 Physics IIE

Singapore Chemistry Olympiad 2019 Results

Singapore Physics Olympiad 2019 Results

NUSH Families and Friends Gathering 29 Dec 2019

Family Christmas Gathering

Playing Nintendo Switch games

Playing Bingo

NUS 2019/2020 Semester 1 Exam Results

Lim Li's NUS Year 2 Semester 1 Exam Results

^CS2105 A-
^CS2107 A+
*GEQ1000 Completed (Satisfactory)
*GER1000 A-
#MA2104 A-
#MA2213 A-
#MA2214 A+
#MA3110S A+

^account for CS CAP
#account for MA CAP
*account for both CS CAP and MA CAP

CAP for Computer Science (CS): 4.88
CAP for Mathematics (MA): 4.86