MEET THE TEAMS OF 2020

Team name: descomUNAL

Institution: Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Bogotá

Coach: Ivan Castellanos

1. Is there a person or story your team admires or looks to for inspiration?

There was a team that went to World Finals a few years ago. They got region champion of Latin America. That year there were a lot of strong teams in Latin America so they weren’t the favorite one. Their rating in codeforces were very average but they had a very strong team and communication skills. We know we are not the best (of course) and also know that we are not favorite but if they could win region we think that putting effort in developing those skills could make us win. We were in second place in our Regional Contest, so we think we can do it.

2. How did you (Coach) get involved as a coach for ICPC competitions? What year did you become involved as a coach?

I started as a competitor some years ago and I made up to the World Finals twice (2016 and 2017), then as I stayed in my university I took the coach role to train new teams and motivate new people to compete, this was right after the Finals of 2017.

3. What skills or strengths do you feel your team brings to the World Finals?

Each of the members started the university at a different year, they have learned different things, in general all of them have very different backgrounds. In my opinion, this makes them a very complete team.

4. Are there any obstacles your team has had to overcome?

Yes. We were about not to compete because we were not motivated because of different circumstances in each of our lives. Also each of us had to leave our previous teams and we were almost strangers to each other. But we got together talked about that and worked on it as it always should be done. #ICPC2020
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