DEV Community: Palestinian Programmers

Competitive Programming in Palestine, between Goals and Dreams, personal story.

Mohamad Milhem — Sat, 15 Feb 2020 21:24:20 +0000

Who are you?

Mohammad Milhem, 16 years old high school student, from Palestine, I like also introducing myself as a junior competitive programmer.

Why did you start learning Programming? and why did you choose competitive programming?

It was an advice from my older brother, he said that programming makes you think better and even helps you solve some of the real-life problems, that was like "Bla Bla Bla" to me, but I wanted something to challenge me, so I took it, later I discovered that was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Why competitive programming..., Actually it was a way to use the knowledge I acquired by learning programming, math, etc... On the other hand, it was something I enjoyed, it challenged me and my skills, and of course, it improved my skills in programming.
With help, and under the guidance of my coach Samed Hajajla, my knowledge grew, and finally, I saw the real wonderful world of computer science.

What struggles did you face while you are learning? are there moments where you almost give up?

As I got my training as online free training, It was always hard to learn new things, you have to search for good resources, videos, etc... but thanks to my coach who always helped me with sources and picked the best for me.
All of us have that moment, in which we feel that we lost our talent, but the most important thing is not to lose faith in ourselves, I always say to myself in such moments, that nobody loses his knowledge or his skills, but he may be misused them. so I learned to love every moment in this path Whether it was a moment of winning or a moment of loss, I learned to love every single point on my graph on code forces, so when I achieve something I will be proud that I didn't stop.

How long you've been doing it?

I started learning to program when I was in the 9th grade, about 14 years old, and I started competitive programming a year after that.

away from programming did competitive programming help you in your life (examples: traveling, school, opportunities, raising thinking abilities, etc..)

I had the chance to participate in IOI 2019 (International Olympiad in Informatics) in Azerbaijan, I made new friends from different countries and different backgrounds, It also helped me in school as a way to solve problems quickly (especially in math exams), and it gave me the opportunity to meet people in this field and work with them, in other words, it made me a well-known person in my county, at least in this field.

tell us an example of one of your favorite problems?

I love geometrical problems, this is one of them I enjoyed solving it, it called Number of Parallelograms, you can find it here, there is another famous dynamic programming problem I liked called knapsack problem, you can also find it here.

Tell us about your achievements and the things you gained out of programming?

I participated in a local contest called "IC" and gained the first place, with a full scholarship in one of the local universities (Palestine technical university Kadoorie (PTUK)), I participated in the Palestinian Olympiad in informatics (POI), gained the first place also, and qualified to the international olympiad in informatics 2019 (Azerbaijan), I didn't do well in the this one, but hopefully, I will next year.

Did you receive any assistance from the competitive programming community in your country?

I did receive a lot of help from the community, but the problem is the community in Palestine is very small, of course, the majority of it from the universities, just a very small group of high-school students are involved in this community, but on the other hand, the community has expanded over recent years, which is a very important step to advance the competitive programming community. Hopefully, within a few years, the community of competitive programming in Palestine will become strong and coherent.

Do you want to add something?

yes, I want to point out to the struggles we faced as "Palestinians" in this field, every year Palestine organize the PCPC (Palestinian collegiate programming contest), in order to qualify teams to participate in ACPC (Africa & Arab Collegiate Programming Championship), but over the recent years, the Palestinians are not allowed to participate in this contest because the hosted country didn't give them visas because they are "Palestinians" and this is unacceptable, also the community face a financial problems which cause delays in scheduling competitions and even trying to cancel some of them, at the end I want to say that we still have faith in ourselves which is the most important thing. Hopefully, this is the bottleneck and we will pass through it safely.

Building a Competitive Programming community in Palestine

Samed Alhajajla — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 10:47:22 +0000

I strongly believe in the opportunities that Palestinian high school students can grasp by getting into the competitive programming field.

6 months after starting my Computer Information Systems Bachelor degree in 2017 I started teaching high school students competitive programming. That was 18 months ago and I still have 2 years left on my degree but I strongly believe in the opportunities that competitive programming affords students.

Competitive programming can raise education levels, increase thinking abilities as well as their coding capabilities.

Competitive programming is also a path into university scholarships and those that succeed there can represent Palestine in international competitions.
I started learning computer science focusing on competitive programming materials in high school through solving lots of algorithms and data structure problems as well as math and I started to participate in competitions in Palestine and outside, most of the ones in Palestine were for university students and I was participating unofficially, recognizing the network I made and the opportunities I grasped made me realize how competitive programming can be a great way of teaching us not just about coding and creative thinking but also about work ethics and life! it was a lifestyle, not just a hobby.
I started teaching online using video calls and messaging starting from teaching the basics of C++ till advanced topics in computer science focusing on graph theory, data structures, number theory, it was a process of so many problems and fewer materials, focusing on practicality over theory was my main focus.
18 months later I've managed with the help of my students to grow the community of competitive programming for high school students all over Palestine with hundreds of interested students, passionate coders and thinkers, aspiring enhance it's quality more as well as making it bigger.

What is competitive programming?

Competitive programming is a mind sport that focuses on logical thinking and knowledge in diverse materials in computer science where you solve problems by thinking first and then coding your solution second.

You need to make sure to take care of time and memory because you may have the right solution but it might take more time than the judge allows.

One of the examples I give often is:

Think of a number between 1 and 100 and I have to guess that number what approach would you use?

One of the obvious solutions is to go through every number and ask is it 1? is it 2? etc.. but what if you have to guess a number between 1 and a thousand? a million? even a billion? That approach would take too much time.

Let's go back to our example if you want to guess a number between 1 and 100 let's say the number on your mind is 63 you take the median between 1 and 100 which is 50 and you ask "is the number in your mind equal to 50"? If the answer is “no” then ask is it "greater or less than 50”? Since it's greater now you take the median between 51 and 100 or (51 + 100)/2 which is 75.5 so now we floor to 75 and we ask the same question.

Since it's less than 75 we do the same process (51 + 75) / 2 which is equal to 63 we ask the same question is it equal to 63? YES!

This approach is a famous approach to an algorithm called binary search, and competitive programming can be extended on other harder problems that you face in competitions and even in job interviews.

I started learning computer science focusing on competitive programming materials in high school through solving lots of algorithms and data structure problems as well as math and I started to participate in competitions in Palestine and outside, most of the ones in Palestine were for university students and I was participating unofficially, recognizing the network I made and the opportunities I grasped made me realize how competitive programming can be a great way of teaching us not just about coding and creative thinking but also about work ethics and life! it was a lifestyle, not just a hobby.

I started teaching online using video calls and messaging starting from teaching the basics of C++ till advanced topics in computer science focusing on graph theory, data structures, number theory, it was a process of so many problems and fewer materials, focusing on practicality over theory was my main focus.

Following that experience, I worked with the Palestinian Olympiad in Informatics - POI in organizing the qualification round for high school students to compete internationally at the International Olympiad in Informatics, 7 of the students who take the online training ranked top 7 at the qualification round.

18 months later I've managed with the help of my students to grow the community of competitive programming for high school students all over Palestine with hundreds of interested students, passionate coders and thinkers as well as volunteering at the Palestinian ministry of education in arranging competitions for there extracurricular programming classes meanwhile working with a local social organization in teaching competitive programming and problem solving, aspiring to enhance the quality and the capacity of the competitive programming community all over Palestine.