China dominates NSA-backed coding contest

Programmers from China and Russia have dominated an international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components.

Whether the outcome of this competition is another sign that math and science education in the U.S. needs improvement may spur debate. But of the 70 finalist in it, 20 were from China, 10 from Russia and only two from the U.S.

TopCoder Inc., which runs software competitions as part of its software development service, operates TopCoder Open, an annual contest.

About 4,200 people participated in the U.S. National Security Agency-supported challenge. The NSA has been sponsoring the program for a number of years because of its interest in hiring people with advanced skills.

Participants in the contest, which was open to anyone -- from student to professional -- and finished with 120 competitors from around the world, went through a process of elimination that finished this month in Las Vegas.

China's showing in the finals was also helped by the sheer volume of its numbers, 894. India followed at 705, but none of its programmers were finalists. Russia had 380 participants; the United States, 234; Poland, 214; Egypt, 145; and Ukraine, 128, among others.

Of the total number of contestants, 93% were male, and 84% were aged between 18 and 24.

Rob Hughes, president and COO of TopCoder, said the strong finish by programmers from China, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere is indicative of the importance those countries put on mathematics and science education.

"We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there," Hughes said. He said the U.S. needs to make earlier inroads in middle schools and high school math and science education.

That's a point Hughes is hardly alone on. President Barack Obama, as well as many of the major tech leaders including Bill Gates, have called for similar action.

Of the participants in the contest, more than 57% had bachelor's degrees, most in computer science, and of that 20% had earned a masters degree, and 6% a PhD.

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