Second prize in JobStreet.com Code Challenge

Lim with his mock cheque and prizes from the competition

UTAR student Lim Yun Kai won the second prize in the inaugural JobStreet.com Code Challenge held at UNITAR International University, Petaling Jaya, on 13 June 2015.

Lim is a first-year Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) student from the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FICT). He walked away with a mock cheque of RM1,500, an IPRO Livepad Tablet and an IPRO SENSE EGO 2 smartphone.

JobStreet.com Code Challenge is a competition for programmers in Malaysia to work on interesting and challenging problems. It was conducted in two stages. In the first or qualifying round which was conducted online, 63 participants were shortlisted for the grand finals in UNITAR.

The finalists were required to solve five algorithmic test cases within two and a half hours. “We had to come up with a solution based on the programming language, and we were graded based on the effectiveness of our solution,” revealed Lim.

He added, “The second last question was very challenging and the first prize winner was able to score higher than me in the question.” However, Lim can still walk tall despite his second place victory, as he was the only UTAR student to be able to crack into the top three of the competition. Besides Lim, there were three other representatives from UTAR in the grand finals. 

Lim also expressed his appreciation to their mentor-cum-FICT lecturer, Dr Ng Yen Kaow. He said, “I want to thank Dr Ng for his invaluable guidance and for helping us to prepare for the competition. He is such a dedicated lecturer and he even asked us to go to his house so that he could train us more in the art of programming.” Dr Ng was also credited with starting a Facebook group that has sparked the culture of algorithmic problem solving among FICT students.

Lim’s prowess in competitive programming was evident even before the Challenge. During his Foundation days in UTAR, he successfully led his team to win the Malaysia ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in September 2014.

Lim’s advice to his juniors is simple. He said, “To excel in competitions like this, you must first develop your interest in competitive programming. The Mathematic skills that you acquire will not only help you to solve programming riddles, but also train you to become a critical thinker and an efficient problem solver in real life.” 

*Photo courtesy of JobStreet.com