Hello Muscat, the Epic Programming Bootcamp Returned

For the second time, Muscat, the beautiful capital of Oman, hosted the Hello Muscat Programming Bootcamp. PhazeRo, an Omani data science and software consultancy, and the German University of Technology in Oman were, again, the main hosts, and Harbour.Space University, together with Codeforces, the world’s biggest online competitive programming community, were proud to repeat as organisers of the event. 

The first Hello Muscat took place in 2019, and 18 countries were represented. Back then, there were only two divisions (A and C) for experts and beginners, and it was a complete success. What students took out of it, as Andrey Stankevich, a Grand Master coach of seven ICPC World Championships, said, “was the ability to compete with other students from different countries”. This year, the event was even bigger. 

This year Hello Muscat was held from March 8th through the 16th. For those eight intensive days, the most experienced coaches trained students from all around the world and prepared them for the different programming contests, with a special focus on the ICPC World Finals in Egypt. This year, more than 90 universities worldwide participated; some of them were: Oxford University, New York University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of California-Davis, Indiana University, University of Cambridge, University of Auckland, The University of Tokyo, University of Sao Paulo, and Delft University of Technology. 

As Svetlana Velikanova, Harbour.Space’s founder and Group CEO, states, “here (the students came) to learn, get inspired, and train to compete on a world scale by solving challenging problems with people from around the globe. The reason we do these bootcamps is first, to inspire people and deepen their knowledge for computer science; second, to train them for competitive programming contests; and, finally, for the teams that have already qualified to the finals to compete against each other and see where they stand”. 

Hello Muscat’s mission is to “make competitive programming accessible to everyone”, and they do that with two great initiatives:

1. The bootcamp is both on-site and online. If a student wants to learn from the best coaches but can’t fly to Oman, they could still attend the bootcamp online. The students that went there stayed at the beautiful Mysk al Mouj hotel, and the venue for the event was the GUtech campus, “a landmark for academic, cultural, and economic development”. 
2. There were three different divisions for students of different levels; that way, everyone could learn:
   • Division A was for teams who have already qualified for the ICPC World Finals
   • Division B was designed for teams that wanted to prepare for next season’s regional competitions
   • Division C was for newcomers that wanted to start training and learning about the world of ICPC competitive programming. 

Hello Muscat’s coaching line-up was fantastic. It was led by Mike Mirzayanov, Founder and CEO of Codeforces; Nikolay Budin, an ICPC Gold Medalist; Artem Plotkin, ICPC and IOI coach; Gleb Evstropov, a co-coach of ICPC World Champions; and Harbour.Space’s very own SWERC winners and CodiGo! programming trainers Maksym Oboznyi and Yahor Dubovik, who is also a Codeforces legendary Grandmaster. 

This line-up combined talent and experience, a great blend that turned Hello Muscat Programming Bootcamp into one of the best competitive programming camps in the world. 

As PhazeRo promoted it, “this event is an excellent chance for you to learn, practice, network, and compete on the international stage, and with the World Finals in Egypt. approaching, this is a great opportunity to practise and build your road towards victory”. 

Lastly, as Murtadha Al-Tameemi, a software engineer that works at Meta, said, “In my career, I have interviewed hundreds of people applying for internships or junior positions at Facebook, and in every single one of those interviews, the skills we look for are related to problem-solving, particularly about data structures and algorithms. And here, in these kinds of events, students practise problem-solving and talk about different data structures and algorithms that are needed to solve those problems. So, if you get the chance to participate in an event like this, whether at your local university or your computer science club, always take that opportunity because it will be an important skill in your career and help you with interviews and job applications you will make in the future”.

For students in Spain that want to attend a programming training course, there is one starting soon. As part of the Tour del Talento 2023, Leagues of Code is offering two completely FREE competitive programming courses for people that want to either learn how to program or want to prepare themselves for future programming competitions, including the Copa CodiGo!

Signing up is incredibly simple. Just go to codigo.gg, scroll down, look for the programming course you want to participate in (basic or advanced), and sign up for free. Keep training and work towards a future in a digital ruled world.

See you there!