The Challenge 2 by Tuesday Afternoon Club

What is The Challenge?

Welcome to The Challenge 2, an online algorithmic competition initiated by the Tuesday Afternoon Club and its founding organization: MNKnowledge.

The event, powered by Gameloft Sofia,  is an open challenge for students and IT professionals. Yet, welcome are also all younger people willing to demonstrate their knowledge in algorithms and technology.

Take your chance to show off your knowledge, skills and creativity, and win a tech face-to-face coaching session with a top IT professional from The Challenge team.

Also, other cool stuff is in store for you, but we’re keeping it under wraps for the moment. Rest assured, you’ll love it.

The story behind: the first edition of the event took place in the spring of 2021 with the support of Chaos and gained the interest of more than 70 algorithmic geeks.

With gaming always being at the forefront of technological developments, the current edition comes under the partnership with Gameloft Sofia.

How to join?

If you want to join The Challenge 2, register now by filling the application form. After the registration you will receive an email with additional information and a link to the platform where the competition will take place. Both the competition and the subsequent coaching sessions will be in Bulgarian.

The problems to be solved* 

The competition includes 3 algorithmic problems of different complexity.

They are all technological problems that require preliminary research, and may take a while to solve. Grading is based on the solution's efficiency, code quality, and overall approach.

*Details about the tournament rules and information about the problems will be given shortly before the start of the competition.

Calendar and important dates

• 11 October 2021 - the online registration for the competition is open.
• 25 October 2021, 5:30 pm - online event for all the enrollees including reveal of the algorithmic problems and technical instructions from The Challenge team. If you miss it, don't worry! You can still register the competition and send us your solutions.
• 25 October - 12 November 2021 - time for the participants to submit their solutions.  During this period registration will stay open for everyone who wants to join us on the run.
• 19 November 2021, 5:30 pm - award event /details to be announced later/.

Awards

The prize fund will be divided between students and professionals and includes:

• Technical coaching sessions with the team behind the Competition.
• An invitation to join the Challenge creative team for its next edition
• Some high-end +18 drinks
• Cool geeky gadgets
• ...and more

The Challenge team

The team behind the competition includes leading IT academics and top professionals. They are eager to see and evaluate your creative solutions to the algorithmic problems and will be glad to meet all the winners for technical coaching sessions.

Professor Krassimir Manev, Ph.D

Prof. Manev is a Bulgarian mathematician and computer scientist at New Bulgarian University. He has years of experience at the Bulgarian National Olympic team in informatics. Between 2014 and 2017 he was President of the International Olympiad in Informatics.

Associate Professor Boyko Bantchev, Ph.D

Mr. Bantchev is a graduate from Sofia University and has been teaching there for many years. He is affiliated with the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. His professional focus is on research, experimentation, computer programming, and teaching in the fields of programming languages, geometric computing, vector computer graphics, and programming.

Associate Professor Petar Armyanov, Ph.D

Mr. Armyanov holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in informatics from Sofia University (SU). He joined the faculty in 2016 to teach 12 subjects related to programming. He was also the assistant coach of the SU’s programming team. His interests include algorithms, programming languages, computer graphics, and high-performance computing. Additionally, Mr. Armyanov has more than 10 years of professional experience as a programmer.

Lyubomir Koev

Lyubomir Koev is a C++ developer at Chaos, where he has worked for more than four years. His strengths are C++ and algorithms (his “weakness” is gaming). For the past six years, Mr Koev has been a teaching assistant at Sofia University for courses in C++, data structures and algorithms — you can find his published materials on his GitHub profile.

Nikolay Dimitrov

Nikolay is a professional Game Developer for the last 15 years. His areas of expertise include AI, Animation Systems, Rendering, Physics, Distributed Systems and other fun and difficult stuff.

Starting from a garage studio in 2006, he is part of Masthead and the creation of the first Bulgarian MMO - Earthrise - and other big and small adventures.

And The Winners are:

Schoolers:

1. Mihail Bankov

2. Dimo Terziev

3. Deyan Hadzhi-Manich

Students:

1. Daniel Tropolinov

2. Martin Datsev

3. Lachezar Hristov, Assoc. Prof.

Professionals 

1. Hristo Hristov

2. Daniel Atanasov

3. Antonio Mindov & Bozhidar Atanasov

Аbout Tuesday Afternoon Club

Tuesday Afternoon Club is an initiative of MNKnowledge. It had its premiere in the first half of 2020, and has had three editions so far.

The Club is a series of online talks on algorithmic topics that brings together people with expertise and interests in the field. The individual sessions are hosted and led by reputed university lecturers and industry professionals.

The initiative aims to keep active and engage the Bulgarian algorithmic community.

MNKnowledge is an IT collective focused on sharing knowledge and consultancy services in the field of information technologies.

About Gamelot

Leader in the development and publishing of games, Gameloft® has established itself as one of the top innovators in its field since 2000.

Gameloft creates games for all digital platforms, two of which are featured in the “Top 10 iOS Games by All-Time Worldwide Downloads” from App Annie.

Gameloft operates its own established franchises such as Asphalt®, Dragon Mania Legends, Modern Combat and Dungeon Hunter and also partners with major rights holders including Disney®, LEGO®, Universal, Illumination Entertainment, Hasbro®, Fox Digital Entertainment, Mattel®, Lamborghini® and Ferrari®. Gameloft distributes its games in over 100 countries and employs 3,600 people worldwide.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or you need some additional information, please contact the competition organizer MNKnowledge by e-mail at office@mnknowledge.com or by phone at +359 898 520 856.

Personal data will be processed only for the needs of the competition.