Birzeit students take first place nationally in annual IEEEXtreme international competition

A team of Birzeit University computer engineering majors took first place nationally, and 37th globally, out of 5570 teams in the 2021 IEEEXtreme computer programming competition, an annual, 24-hour contest in which students from all over the world create innovative solutions to data problems.

The team, “goodbyeLimitless,” consisted of Mohammad Melhem, Bawasel Hijaz and Odeh Masalmeeh, who participated in the competition along with eight other Birzeit University teams. The teams scored the most advanced places locally in this year’s contest, surpassing all other Palestinian teams.

In third place was “BytesWatch,” “theAshawes” in fourth, “ACEO” in fifth, and “BZUHuffmen” in the sixth place. In the seventh, eighth, ninth and eleventh places, consecutively, were “FasterThan911,” “Semicolonz,” “CodingAgents,” and “TrioEpic.”

Wasel Ghanem, a professor of computer science and IEEE coordinator at Birzeit University, said that the students excelled locally and internationally despite the difficulty of the questions, all due to their hard work and determination.