The UT Programming Team consists of Trung Dang (coach) and teammates Aaryan Prakash, Mark Wen, and Dylan Smith from left to right.
On Mon, 26 May 2025, the UT Programming Team competed in the International Collegiate Programming Contest North America Championship (NAC) in Orlando, FL, hosted by the University of Central Florida.
The competition consisted of 52 teams of 3 students from 52 schools across the US and Canada. UT Austin solved 6 of the 13 problems and came in 22nd.
Trung Dang (current Ph.D.) coached the three students: Aaryan Prakash ('25, B.S.), Dylan Smith ('26, B.S.), and Mark Wen ('25, B.S.). The faculty advisors were Prof. Etienne Vouga and Prof. Glenn Downing.
UT has been competing since 1997. UT went to the 2016-17 41st World Finals in South Dakota, the 2017-18 42nd World Finals in Beijing, China, the 2018-19 43rd World Finals in Porto, Portugal, the 2019-20 44th World Finals in Moscow, Russia (online), the 2021-22 46th World Finals in Luxor, Egypt, and the 2023-24 48th World Finals in Astana, Kazakhstan.
UT has seen marked improvement since creating a new elective, CS104c: Competitive Programming, in 2014.
The ICPC traced its roots to 1970 when the pioneers of the Alpha Chapter of the UPE Computer Science Honor Society hosted the first competition. The initiative spread quickly within the United States and Canada as an innovative program to increase students' ambition, problem-solving aptitude, and opportunities in computing.
Over time, the contest evolved into a multi-tier competition, with the first championship round conducted in 1977. Since then, the tournament has expanded into a worldwide collaboration of universities hosting regional competitions that advance teams to the annual global championship, the ICPC World Finals.
The International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is the premier global programming competition conducted by and for universities. It is part of the ICPC Foundation.
The contest fosters creativity, teamwork, and innovation in building new software programs and enables students to test their ability to perform under pressure. The tournament has raised the aspirations and performance of generations of the world's problem solvers in the computing sciences and engineering.