So it seems that what it takes to find “top coders” is just dangle some cash under their noses and see who jumps.

So AOL and the NSA (along with Bloomberg and UBS - two reputable outfits) are having a contest to find the ‘top coders’.

This whole thing seems pretty bizarre to me, but typical of today’s day and age.  Since money is all that matters - lets offer $200k in prizes.  That’ll be sure ot get the ‘best of breed’ - exactly the sort of folks that don’t see anything wrong with working for the NSA.

Those are the sort of people we WANT working at the NSA - right?

But AOL?

I don’t see the next generation consumer friendly, compelling experience generating coolio apps being built by geeks who can ’stand up to pressure’ and endure 3 days of tournament.  But maybe I’m wrong.

Clearly this is where all the money is.

There’s a webcast, so make sure to dial in. It might be as fun as battling robots or Survivor/Bachelor/Apprentice.

Here’s the promotional language:

AOL & TopCoder, Inc. have announced that the 2006 TopCoder®  Collegiate Challenge will be webcast live on Friday, November 17.  This global event will be presented on the internet for the first time bringing the excitement and drama of competitive coding at the highest level. The competition brings 64 of the world’s best collegiate programmers competing against the clock and each other for a share of $200,000 in prizes. The 2006 TopCoder Collegiate Challenge will be produced live from San Diego, California and distributed worldwide exclusively via title sponsor AOL’s developer site at dev.aol.com

Visit dev.aol.com to watch the competition unfold live starting 1:30 pm PST/4:30 EST (21:30 GMT). Over the course of the four hour webcast, viewers will be able to watch the high stakes software competition through live views of the arena, entertaining profiles and interviews with contestants – and in-depth coverage of the final results – in real time. What: Live Webcast of TopCoder Collegiate Challenge 06
Where: On AOL at http://dev.aol.com
When: 1:30 pm PST/4:30 EST (21:30 GMT)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 11:01 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.