Singapore student wins Google India Code Jam

BANGALORE: Google Inc. has announced Ardian Kristanto Poernomo from Nanyang Technology University in Singapore as the grand prizewinner of the 2006 Google India Code Jam, the company's second annual computer programming competition in India. Ardian competed against thousands of participants from around the world to bring home the Rs.122,000 grand prize. Ardian was also the winner of the Google India Code Jam 2005.

"We are honored to host some of the most talented computer programmers in the world for this competition," said Alan Eustace, vice president, Engineering and Research, Google Inc. "Google engineers love solving technical problems, and we are pleased to celebrate the fields of engineering and computer science through the Google India Code Jam."

The second through fifth place winners all received a Rs.56,000 prize. The winners included Abishek Kumarasubramanian, Shreevatsa Rajagopalan, Phuong Ngoc Nguyen and Prima Chairunnanda.

Cash prizes were awarded to all of the top 50 finalists who came from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Singapore. Finalists were flown in to compete in the championship round of the coding competition held this year in Bangalore.

This is the second year of the Google India Code Jam, produced in conjunction with TopCoder, the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development.

The competition, which began March 20, 2006 attracted more than 14000 participants from India and South East Asia. All entrants participated in an initial qualification round with 500 progressing to the second round. The top 50 scorers from round two were brought to Bangalore for the finals.