Let’s talk about unexpected benefits. One of my great joys of being part of HPE has been working with CodeWars. It’s a computer programming competition for high school students and I’ve been part of it since the event was first hosted at the Hewlett Packard Houston campus in 1998.
Twenty-five years later and I couldn’t be prouder to say it’s still going strong. After making the switch to virtual for the last couple of years, I’m even more pleased to say the event is back in person and will be the first in-person event for HPE at our new Houston campus this year.
Not familiar with CodeWars? Here’s the story
We might call it CodeWars but this fun and friendly programming contest is really more about building skills and celebrating accomplishments than a get out there and crush your opponent kind of thing. In fact, we’ve been successfully working in recent years to raise awareness among and solicit teams from underrepresented communities.
Now in its 25th year, CodeWars has grown over the years and the event now spans multiple U.S. locations and countries around the world. This year we’re hosting in-person contests in Houston, Texas; Roseville, California; Ft. Collins, Colorado; and Taipei, Taiwan. CodeWars will be virtual in India and we’ll host an additional virtual contest that will run concurrently with the U.S.-based events.
While CodeWars has gone global over the years, our purpose remains much the same: to nurture interest in STEM in the communities where we live and work.
I won’t lie… we benefit, too. Not only are we enriched by the relationships we’ve built with educators and students, but we’ve also brought some exceptional talent on board as a result. We’ve offered high school internships to some CodeWars participants that we’ve later hired as employees.
Now to the fun stuff
So… what does a CodeWars contest look like? Well, it depends a little on the students themselves. I couldn’t tell you how the tradition started but a lot of teams like to show up in costume and/or decorate their table. We’ve seen it all. One year it was rubber horse heads. Another we had a complete aluminum foil robot.
Accessorizing aside, a CodeWars day starts with team check in, breakfast, and set up (think table decorating here—oh yeah, and connecting to the network).
Then it’s right down to business. Each three-person team has three hours to complete a set of 20-30 questions. Both Novice and Advanced teams (teams self-select based on the amount of programming or competition experience they have) share a common pool of problems.
Programming languages allowed are C, C++, Java, and Python 3. Each problem carries a point value with values increasing with problem difficulty. The goal is to solve as many problems as possible in three hours. At the end, it’s simple. The teams with the most points win!
After the formal contest and lunch, we award trophies to the top teams in both the Novice and Advanced groups. Plus, there’s lots of door prizes like computers, monitors, software, and more. One year the winners got to run a program on the system on the International Space Station.
At its core, CodeWars might be about promoting computer science and engineering but, for me, it represents a whole lot more than that. It’s about kids achieving more than they thought they could and… yes… seeing them find joy in what we love here at HPE.
CodeWars 2022
HPE hosts CodeWars events at locations in the U.S., Taiwan, and India. In the U.S., CodeWars usually takes place the first weekend in March.
This year, our U.S.-based events saw nearly 700 students from almost 100 different schools on Saturday, March 5 at our headquarters in Houston, Rocklin High School in California, a virtual event for Denver to Fort Colins, Colorado-area students, and a national virtual contest. Here were the top 3 finishers in both the novice and advanced categories at each event:
In addition to working their way through a set of 30 problems, students heard from HPE execs including Antonio Neri, Neil MacDonald, and Caroline Atherton, and had a chance to win over $15K worth of raffle prizes including monitors, laptops, and PCs.
It’s not too early to start gearing up for next year’s CodeWars! The U.S. event is happening Saturday, March 4, 2023. For more information, visit us any time at https://hpecodewars.org.
If you’re based in India or Taiwan, we still have two more CodeWars events coming up for 2022!
India, April 9
CodeWars India is currently open for participation from schools across India. This year the event will also host a Hackathon. The Hackathon track is open from through March 30. Students submit ideas and projects on three themes: 2030 sustainable development goals, healthcare, and cyber awareness.
For more information and to register, visit: https://www.codingal.com/hpe-codewars-2022/
Taipei, Taiwan, April 2022
CodeWars Taiwan will be in in-person this year. More information coming soon!
Follow CodeWars on social!
Instagram: CodeWars Central
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Scott Shaffer is the Vice President of Server Advanced Development and the U.S. COE (Center of Excellence) for HPE’s Compute business. Scott oversees the incubation of new technologies such as OpenBMC and proving them out with customers. His organization includes the HPE-wide Product Security Office, which drives security standards across the company.
A software developer by training, Scott earned his B.A. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 1989. He has spent his professional career leading worldwide teams of engineers of all stripes. Scott has spent time in leadership positions at Compaq, HP, EMC, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He has been responsible for industry-leading products such as HPE ProLiant Servers, Compaq Insight Manager, EMC Control Center, and many more.
Scott is in his third year as executive sponsor for CodeWars, a volunteer-supported coding competition for high school students. Jointly produced by HPE and HP, CodeWars is a fun and educational STEM initiative designed to help motivate and launch the next generation of tech leaders.
HPE-Editor
Editor-in-chief for the HPE Advancing Life & Work blog.
