Programmers from Around the World to Compete in Finals at Google Headquarters

Google the 50 finalists in the second annual Google Code Jam, Google’s online coding competition consisting of a series of problem-solving challenges that invite participants to select a programming language and use their programming skills to code solutions to the problems.

"The Google Code Jam is one way Google encourages and supports the engineering, programming and computer science communities around the world," said Alan Eustace, vice president, Engineering, Research and Systems Lab, Google Inc. "We’re continually exploring new opportunities to reach out to smart, talented people who enjoy solving problems. This is a fun way of finding, rewarding and potentially recruiting some of those people to Google."

This year’s Championship Round will be held at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., on October 15, 2004. Finalists will compete for $50,000 in prize money, including $10,000 for the first place winner, $7,000 for the second place winner, and $5,000 for the third place winner.

The Google Code Jam is powered by TopCoder, the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development. Registration for the competition began Sept. 1, and attracted more than 7,500 participants from more than 100 countries.

This is the second year of the Google Code Jam. In 2003, Jimmy Mardell of Stockholm, Sweden, took home the grand prize. Prior to the first Google Code Jam, Google held a smaller programming contest and hired the winner, who is now part of Google's New York-based engineering team. More information about Google Code Jam 2004 can be found at .