Google Announces Winner of the 2005 Google Code Jam; Marek Cygan from Poland Codes His Way to $10,000 Grand Prize

"It's an honor to host the most talented computer programmers inthe world," said Alan Eustace, vice president, Engineering andResearch, Google Inc. "With more than twice as many participants inthe Google Code Jam this year, competition was fierce. Congratulationsto Marek and all of our finalists."

The second place winner was Erik-Jan Krijgsman, a student at theUniversity of Wente in the Netherlands, and the third place winner wasPetr Mitrichev, a student at Moscow State University in Russia. Bothreceived a $5,000 cash prize.

Additional cash prizes were awarded to the other top 100finalists, who came from 32 countries ranging from Scandinavia toSoutheast Asia. Google flew all finalists to its Mountain View, Calif.headquarters to compete in the championship round of the codingcompetition. In 2004, Sergio Sancho, a student at the University ofBuenos Aires, took home the grand prize.

This is the third year of the Google Code Jam, which is producedin conjunction with TopCoder, the leader in online programmingcompetition, skills assessment and competitive software development.The Google Code Jam is a celebration of the art of computer science,and signals to programmers everywhere the value Google places onexcellent coding.

The competition, which began August 22, attracted 14,500participants from more than 32 countries. All entrants participated inan initial qualification round with 500 progressing to the secondround. The top 100 scorers from round two were brought to Google forthe finals. Programming in the competition can be done in Java, C++,C# or VB.NET languages.

More information about Google Code Jam 2005 can be found athttp://www.google.com/codejam.

About Google Inc.

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