IBM Courts College’s Champion CodersStudents nab first and second place at ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

MDC champs at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest include, seated from left, Sandro Del Valle Arocha and Lázaro Alvarez, and, standing from left, Carlos Galguera, coach Adnan Zejnilovic, Carlos Sánchez, Joseph Casal, Jorge Varela and coach Alicia Ibarra.

A brilliant group of MDC students recently beat the competition to nab first and second place in the state at the annual Association of Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest held at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne.

MDC, the only two-year school at the event, faced other top four-year institutions from around the state, including the University of South Florida, Nova Southeastern, University of Florida and Florida Southern College.

“We put MDC on the programming map in this most recent competition,” said Professor Adnan Zejnilovic, who serves as head coach. “Our team members were courted by IBM, which was one of the sponsors of the event.”

Founded at Wolfson Campus in November 2012 by Zejnilovic, the powerful MDC programming team has since added two advisors and two locations to the mix: Professor Alicia Ibarra at Hialeah Campus and Professor Hien Nguyen at MDC-West.

“The three of us work really well together,” Zejnilovic said.