The 18th Olympic Informatics for Vietnamese students kicked off in Nha Trang city of Khanh Hoa province on October 7.

More than 700 students from 70 universities and colleges nationwide will take part in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM/ICPC) Vietnam and the “Creative Summer with the application of open-source software” contest.

These events are being held by the Vietnam Association of Informatics, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Education and Training in coordination with Nha Trang University.

On October 8, around 350 students will participate in the 18th Olympics in various groupings: the Super Cup group, the professional group, the amateur group, and the open-source software group.

On the next day, students from 83 teams will compete in the professional and amateur ACM/ICPC contests.

On the same day, five teams who pass the first round of the open-source software competition will compete in the final round.

According to Vice Chairman of Vietnam Association of Informatics Nguyen Long, 12 teams will win awards by the end of the ACM/ICPC contests and the top 10 teams will participate in the 2009 ACM-ICPC Asia Regional Programming Contest slated for Phuket, Thailand, on November 4./.