Estonian IT students’ team represents Baltic States in Germany
The International Student Cluster Competition will take place in Frankfurt next week where the Estonian team will be the only Baltic team. Estonia will be represented by a team of students from the University of Tartu’s Institute of Computer Science who have been specially trained for the competition by professors, lecturers and doctoral students.
The students need to build a computer cluster within a time limit in front of the committee. “The aim of building super computers and clusters is to improve the students’ skills in working with large data collections. Many services are based on their functionality, for example, cloud data processing, search engines, weather forecasts and so on,” said Tõnu Tamme, lecturer in Theoretical Informatics at the University of Tartu and supervisor of the team.
According to Tamme, building a cluster enables students to understand how real–time information systems operate. It is also a chance to compare their knowledge to peers from other countries. “These experiences will come in handy when Estonia acquires a super computer,” noted Tamme.
According to the supervisor, the participants of the contest are talented international students who have demonstrated dedication to their specialisation and high–level skills in solving study tasks. “As the competition is tight, the Estonian team comprises only of very competent IT students who have proven their skills.”
The members of the student team “Suitsupääsuke” hope that with this competition they will be able to demonstrate the UT’s high competence in computer science even more. “We are the first team from the Baltic States, and even from northern and eastern Europe, to participate in the competition. We believe that participating in the competition demonstrates our professional competence and our wish to advance science in this field,” described the team.
The University of Tartu’s six–member student team will enter the competition on 13 July. The students were trained for the contest by several IT doctoral students, lecturers and professors, including members of the distributed systems research team. Research Fellow of Distributed Systems at the University of Tartu Benson Muite believes that participating in this contest is very important because students need to learn how to divide a source code so that it can be run simultaneously. “It is a skill that helps the Estonian IT industry stay competitive on the international level,” added Muite.
In addition to Estonia, there will be teams from China, Spain, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and elsewhere.
The competition is organised by the HPC Advisory Council and it will take place in Frankfurt from 11 to 15 July. In previous years, the event has had more than 2000 visitors and 160 exhibitors.
Read more about the team and their supervisors on the website of “Suitsupääsuke”.
Additional information: Tõnu Tamme, lecturer in Theoretical Informatics at the University of Tartu, tel: 737 549, e-mail: tonu.tamme [ät] ut.ee.