Announcing GO For Gold Campaign (Powered by NST)

Greeting Indian ICPC contestants !!

India is home to some of the brightest minds in the world, and our potential is undeniable. Yet we have a long way to go regarding Competitive Programming at ICPC. While Indian teams have shown great promise by reaching to World Finals but getting a medal is still something which we are still trying to achieve. But with our current talent and potential, we can and will achieve this.

At NST, we believe the potential exists, and what’s needed is structured guidance, consistent mentorship, and a platform to hone these skills under expert supervision. That’s why we created Go For Gold, a program focused on building a culture of competitive programming excellence in India, not just for one college or a year, but as a long-term initiative to make India a top contender at ICPC.

The Go For Gold Program, with the support of NST, a neo-age college program, is an institutional effort to propel competitive programming in India. With the initiative, we want to ensure India wins its first medal in the next 3 to 4-year horizon. This program aims to be the first to build a more robust, competitive ecosystem of top programmers from college and industry. We invite every student, mentor, and institution to join hands in this mission. Your involvement is not just appreciated. It's crucial to India’s rise in the global competitive programming arena.

India needs a deep culture of competitive problem. We want to make younger kids aware of Competitive Programming early. This complex undertaking would require all the hands to come together. Our initiative of Go For Gold will cover strategies to reach the programming and competitive problem culture from the early years of schooling.

NST believes that by building a vibrant programming community with proper support and guidance, we can make a change at the country level by creating a competitive culture of programming and problem-solving.

We would like to do more rigorous camps with top trainers, not just at the elite level but right from class 6th for IOI in parallel to IOITC but for larger audiences.

With IIT Kanpur announcing six seats to Computer Science and Engineering from IOI and IMO selection, the broken pipeline between IOI and ICPC will get better enhancing our chances to get a medal.

Announcing GO FOR GOLD Camp

We are hosting a 7 days offsite invite-only bootcamp to train this year aspirants for Asia West and World Finals. The contest will happen in 2 divisions

• division 1 (ex ICPC Finalist teams and top-10 teams from prelims)
• division 2 (top 30-40 teams from the prelims and ex-Asia west Finalist teams)

From last few years we are solving 5 problems in WF (our best rank was in 2012 where IIITH team solved 6 problems).

The div1 camp will focus on 4th — 6th problems of WF so that this year our team can solve first 5 problems fast and get enough time to solve the 6th problem (aryanc403's team solved 5 problems in 4:40 in 2021, if we could reduce this time then we can solve the 6th problem)

The div2 camps will focus on Last few problems of Asia West and first 4 problems of WF.

Fees

• The camp is completely free for ex Finalist teams top-10 prelims teams

• The training/material/logistics will be free for div2 and we will only charge a token amount (INR 8000 per person only for booking stay).

Are you still feeling unsure? Here is the trainer list, which we are still adding.

1. ⁠AmirReza Pourakhavan (Arpa), 2x ICPC WF, IGM
2. ⁠Shreyan Ray (Dominater069), IOI silver medalist, ICPC WF, IGM
3. Aryan Choudhary (aryanc403), Asia West Champion in WF 2021, GM
4. Utkarsh Gupta (demoralizer), 2x ICPC WF, GM
5. ⁠Himanshu Singh (hitman623), ICPC WF, GM
6. ⁠Priyansh Agrawal (Priyansh31dec), ICPC WF
7. Vivek Gupta (acraider), ICPC WF, Master, 7* on Codechef
8. Gaurish Baliga (Queue), Master on CF
9. Deepak Gour (Enigma27), ICPC WF

⁠ Date: December 4th to December 11th 2024

Location: NST | RU Campus, Sonipat (Near Delhi)

Registration Deadline: 18th Nov 2024

Registration Link: Fill this form for interest

Update : Join the Discord community

Update 2 : Had an awesome podcast with IICPC team on the the GoForGold Camp and how to improve the overall CP culture.

Update 3 :

Since ICPC prelims will be organized again and it will be difficult for the teams to arrange for travel in short duration thus we will be selecting teams on the basis of :

1. Your past performance in ICPC Regionals/AWC/WF

2. Average rating of your team (~1800+ for div2 and ~2100+ for div1 with some advantage for 2nd/3rd year and IOI candidates)

3. If you have solved >=4 problems in the recent prelims round.

Once you fill the interest form, we will wait till ICPC prelims result and you will get either a direct invite or a meet link with IICPC team after which we will select teams. (All of this will be done before 18th of Nov)

Prizes

Top 3 teams of both the divisions will get prizes

Partners and Volunteers

• TLE — ELiminators

Thanks to Priyansh31dec and Queue for volunteering to take sessions and helping in the camp. You guys are such a good sport and will act as the examples for the current gen of aspirants to volunteer in future initiatives

• AskSenior

Thanks s_jaskaran_s for helping in the brainstorming the ideation of the camp and working in building the amazing CP community

• IICPC

Thanks IICPC for amazing discussion and providing the CP perspective from the POV of current ICPC aspirants. Also thanks to volunteer in the team selection for the camp.

• Algozenith

Thanks acraider for joining in this initiative and promoting the CP culture in India.

• Educators

Thanks Dominater069 , demoralizer, hitman623, aryanc403, Queue, Arpa, Priyansh31dec for helping as educators and transfering your experience to the future gen.

• Special Thanks

Thanks Ashishgup and kr_abhinav for giving some really good ideas from Alumni perspective. It was fun to be on a call and discuss the good old days with both of you.

To make this a mission, we would like to call upon all the enthusiasts and passionate people to join the camp. We will require a lot of help in preparing material and content. We would like it to be a community-driven initiative from the start. If you want to help, please fill out the form.