Facebook’s 2nd annual Hacker Cup competition, held at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, witnessed 25 of the world’s best hackers gather for an intense competition. Roman Andreev of Russia took top prize by correctly completing a problem in 1 hour and 4 minutes, one minute ahead of the second place winner. Andreev received an unusually-designed and heavy trophy made of cement, along with a check for $5,000.
The contest is an annual algorithmic programming contest that Facebook makes open to engineers from anywhere in the world.
This final battle was preceeded by three rounds of online competition that commenced after the January registration event. Out of total of 8,000 submissions, 6,000 qualified competitors were winnowed down in each successive online round.
The 25 finalists were flown to Facebook’s headquarters for the final. Of the 25 top coders, all were male, and included students, independent coders, and professionals. They came from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, along with one competitor from the United States. Travel expenses were financed by Facebook and included stipends for travel visas.
The 25 finalists were given three hours to solve 3 problems, with the winner being the first to correctly finish a problem. The winner is awarded the title of “hacker world champion,” along with a prize of $5,000. The second place prize is $2,000, third place is awared $1,000, and the remaining 22 finalists each received $100.
