OREANDA-NEWS. April 8, 2011. Mail.Ru Group announces the launch of the largest All-Russian Cup in Programming - Russian Code Cup. The main objective of RCC - to identify and support talents in IT sphere, increase the attractiveness of the Internet industry and showcase Russia's prestige as an innovative state in the eyes of the international community.

Russian Code Cup is the first and largest intellectual competition for programmers in Russia where participants will complete non-trivial programming tasks and those who score highly will receive well-deserved awards. First prize is 10,000 dollars, which is the most serious cash prize among IT-competitions in Russia.

Russian Code Cup will run over five months with several Internet rounds to finish with a final round. Organizers plan to bring 50 of the best programmers to the final round in September 2011. More than 5 000 people will be welcome to participate in the project.

Tasks for the participants have been developed by the technical specialists of Mail.Ru Group together with leading experts at Saint-Petersburg State University of IT, Mechanics and Optics. The working group is chaired by Andrey Stankevich, who is an associate professor of Computer technology department, winner of the President of the Russian Federation prize in the education field, winner of the ACM-ICPC Founder's Award, and winner of the special award of IBM Corporation that is awarded for excellence in coaching.

Dmitry Grishin, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mail.Ru Group: "Russia has always been and remains home of IT-talents. We hope that the Russian Code Cup will provide additional motivation for further improvement of talented local developers. Moreover, we hope that the launch of the Olympiad will be a good catalyst for the development of the whole Russian Internet in this direction. Indeed, in the framework of the RCC, we plan to identify more promising programmers across the country and provide maximum support for their career and professional growth. "

According to Andrey Stankevich, associate professor of Computer technology department at Saint-Petersburg State University of IT, Mechanics and Optics, the Russian Code Cup gives a unique chance to young and talented programmers to assess their abilities and get better acquainted with elite Russian Programmers.

To participate in Russian Code Cup which will take place from May, 8th till September, 17th, 2011 register at: http://russiancodecup.ru. The finalists of the Cup will be granted great opportunities of professional development to help with their own projects.