Join the Programmer's Marathon

HYDERABAD: The Sierra Atlantic Programmers' Marathon, slated to be an annual event, aims at spotting, promoting and rewarding budding software professionals.

"The program is a perfect platform for students to showcase their programming skills and most importantly aimed at the educational institutes and students to gain a clear insight into the kind of technology and soft skills the industry looks at," explained Sierra Atlantic senior VP products Joga Ryali.

Claimed to be a first of its kind of program, the event to be held on December 22, 2004, is expecting participation of 500 to 600 students from within the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, besides few out station participants from Pune, Warangal and BITS Pilani institute. Of the 500 to 600 participants, a written test would be conducted on December 18, out of which 30 teams consisting of three in each team would be selected for the final round.


During the Sierra Atlantic Programmers' Marathon each team will be given a coding challenge and tested for their ability to deliver results at the end of the day.

The necessary infrastructure like access to relevant software, computers etc would be provided for each team, at the newly coming up facility of Sierra Atlantic in Banajara Hills, Hyderabad. The evaluation of the solution and the announcement of winners would be done on December 23. A jury consisting of senior program directors from Sierra Atlantic will judge the winning teams. The winners will be recognized and rewarded with cash prizes.

"We chose not to provide Internet connectivity to ensure that access to source code is not available. The idea is to bring out the talent within the students. Also, with such programs, students would get prepared to work in competitive and real time environment," added Sierra Atlantic business development VP Sanjay Khendry.