Facebook has announced it will hold its first annual multi-round programming competition called Hacker Cup. Entrants will have their answers to “algorithmic-based problem statements” scored on accuracy and speed.
Facebook has been using its Hackathons to engage the development community, promote its status as a technology company, and recruit top talent.
Facebook says:
“We’re starting the Hacker Cup to bring engineers from around the world together to compete in a multi-round programming competition. Contestants will have to successfully solve algorithmic-based problem statements to advance and are ranked by accuracy and speed”.
The first online round will consist of three sub rounds that each last three hours. The top-scoring 1,000 participants from each of these sub rounds will advance the second online round.
25 competitors who score the highest in the second online round will be flown to Facebook headquarters to compete for a $5,000 grand prize and the Hacker Cup trophy.
Here are the details of the Hacker Cup rounds:
Qualification Round
Time Limit: 72 hours
Date: 4pm PST, January 7, 2011 to January 10
To Advance: Solve at least one of the three problems.
Online Round 1
Time Limit: 3 sub-rounds of 3 hours each
Date: Different times from 7am PST, January 15 to 4pm PST, January 15
To Advance: Score amongst the top 1,000 competitors in any of the three sub-rounds.
Online Round 2
Time Limit: 3 hours
Date: 7am PST, January 22 to 10am PST, January 22
To Advance: Score amongst the top 25 competitors to be flown to Facebook headquarters and receive accommodations in Palo Alto, CA for the finals. Those scoring amongst the top 300 competitors will receive an official Hacker Cup t-shirt.
Finals
Date: March 11
First Place: $5,000, the title of world champion, and the winner’s name on the Hacker Cup trophy
Second Place: $2,000
Third Place: $1,000
Fourth through Twenty-Fifth Place: $100.
