I want this blog post to be a place where the story of how I founded this club is shared publicly for the first time. This is the achievement I’m most proud of during my four years at university. This is mainly written for all the younger generation of students studying computer science at MSA.

In order to start telling this story from my point of view, I will start from before the Fall 2022 semester had started.

Pre-Fall 2022

Over the summer break, one of my close friends studying computer science at NU shares his certificate for participating at the ECPC. I saw the ICPC logo and I recognized that logo from some popular YT videos I saw of people solving problems online and saying it’s for the ICPC. I sent him asking what’s the story behind this certificate, he replied telling me all about the ECPC, that it’s held annually, that he is able to participate with a club that has been established for many years at his university.

I immediately checked the list of clubs my university offered students, only to find out that the ICPC community club at my university simply doesn’t exist.

I was and still very much am, deeply disappointed that no one cared to establish such a community or train the students to participate at the ECPC on a large scale before at MSA. It was sad to see that in order to participate, I would, first, have to make this competition a known thing and try to market it since no one knew what this was. I was told that there was a single TA that trained students before and participated, but she left the university like 3 years ago after participating for 2 consecutive years.

Fall 2022

First week of the semester, I scheduled a meeting with the vice-dean. On the day of the meeting, first time talking to him, I told him how we needed to participate at the contest and that almost all of the schools that taught computer science across the country participated and it’s very bad that we didn’t. He welcomed the idea fiercely. He told me that there was another senior student, Mohamed Alaa, that had asked for the same idea to be implemented before but for some reason they didn’t follow through with the idea. He then asked me if I could, after contacting Alaa, gather some students for this initiative to start. I told him I could but who would give the training?

He asked me to follow him and we stood up and walked to an office, knocked and he entered to Dr. Islam ElSharaawy. This was the first time I met Dr. Islam. The vice-dean then continued to greet him and told him about my idea to participate. Dr. Islam welcomed the idea and said he could provide the training.

And so we did, after gathering the students, Alaa and I became the president and the vice president of the community, respectively. And we gathered over a 100 student to begin the training.

Spring 2023

Throughout the first year, the training was very chaotic and very disorderly, Due to the fact that no one was assigned the full responsibility of planning effectively for the sessions and the students themselves were not highly motivated or committed.

The community grew step-by-step. But since this was the first year for this to take place. No one knew what this was. The registration for the ECPC begin in May, Alaa took care of almost everything regarding the registration.

Eventually, we ended up participating at the ECPC 2023!

Fall 2023

The start of a new academic year, or as we call it in CPC, Season 2.

Alaa had graduated and I was left to manage this community alone, tasked to convert the community to an official student activity (a club).

This involved a lot of tasks that I had no experience in. I had to recruit students to handle our branding & media, hire a graphic designer to create our logo, draft all the required papers and have them signed, develop a training a plan with Dr. Islam and recruit a new vice president.

For the logo, I hired a professional graphic designer who was an old friend. He did a good job.

For our media, I knew a classmate who was the head of media at a very prestigious club at the university, Omar Ahmed. I called him and he agreed. Later on, he founded our visual identity completely on his own. The whole media team at our club did the best coverage possible and were all remarkable. They helped CPC gain the attention it did when it first started.

For our training plan, I let Dr. Islam handle that.

For the vice president, I heard about this senior student who was known to be very good at organizing faculty events. I called her and luckily she agreed.

Once all was done, I submitted the papers to the student activities department and a week later, before the start of the semester, we received a notification that our community is now an official club at the university.

Fall 2023

The first 3 weeks were dedicated to recruiting students to the club. And the first session held was an orientation session.

On the 4th week, Dr. Islam gave the first lecture session which was a huge success with high turnout rate.

After the midterm exams were over, one of our best technical mentors, Baraa Hekal, spoke to me about how the training was going too fast and that most communities gave the training in a different style than ours. He proposed a change of plans regarding the training and I thought it was correct to approve it since most communities were giving out their training in a different style and since this was coming from our most skilled competitive programmer.

This proposed change meant that we would have to start the training from the beginning.

That, for whatever reason, really did upset Dr. Islam at that time, so much that he never attended or held another lecture and told us to continue on our own with him in the background as our guiding mentor.

And so we did, we finished off the entire season by giving out sessions through our technical mentors (senior students). This made us self-sustainable to some point, which was what Dr. Islam initially wanted. But it wasn’t anywhere near the level of technical quality we had hoped for; since the top competitive programmers available weren’t very experienced in teaching.

And so, once I realized we needed help, in December, I contacted Nile University’s ICPC Community to see if they could collaborate with us.

NU ICPC Community Club President, Omar Morshdy, replied back to me and agreed to come to MSA to give two sessions. This was one of the best things I was able to do during my time as head of the MSA CPC Community Club. Because regardless of the technical advantages, just being able to give our students exposure to skilled students from NU’s ICPC Community and to get to know these highly experienced competitive programmers was a great step in itself.

Anyways, before we traveled to the ECPC, I was informed that Dr. Islam had resigned from the faculty. This meant that we had to find another instructor to travel with us as our supervisor. Eventually, we settled with another instructor as our temporary supervisor.

As the registration for the ECPC 2024 started, the thing that I’m most proud of is that the entire registration process was done by one person this time, me.

I created four separate forms, sent them out, collected all the data for 28 teams (85 students), created teams for those who were looking for a team (matchmaking), signed the papers and got the approvals. I can say that doing so alone was one of the things I am proud to have done. Because eventually, on the day to Alexandria, when I saw the three buses waiting for the students, and everyone getting on the buses, all that effort was instantly redeemed.

Another funny thing I did, when we arrived to Alexandria, I contacted a restaurant to send me their menu and I sent it to the community group chat, telling them to pick their food. Keep in mind, this was a restaurant I had only contacted on the same day, and I didn’t even agree with the bus drivers yet that we were going to do this. Ironically enough, we actually did end up all going out there.

On the day of the competition, since Dr. Islam wasn’t with us this time, a lot of the things he handled very professionally, were handled by me and the temporary supervisor at last minute (signing and delivering enrollement letters, bus issues, different cases for students & parents, etc.).

Due to the fact that I had to handle all of this, I was very relieved when we came out of the competition. I felt like I had dropped the heaviest load that I had been carrying with me for the longest time possible.

I remember looking out and seeing our teams walking out of the competition’s venue while laughing and chatting. A pure moment of joy to see that people had got the experience that they came for. I conjured all the moments spent to prepare for this trip, all the people involved, all the meetings held and the effort the technical team had put with the students throughout the year, this wasn’t my achievement alone but this was the last time I would ever be responsible for anything related to CPC again.

After returning from the competition, I knew it was time to ensure a smooth transition for the club’s leadership. I reached out to Dr. Farid Ali, a respected faculty member, and successfully convinced him to become our new Academic Supervisor, recognizing that his guidance would be crucial for the club’s continued growth.

Once Dr. Farid was on board, I began the process of transitioning the presidency to the new leader. I carefully selected a new leader who I believed had the passion and commitment needed to lead the club. To ensure they were fully prepared, I spent several weeks mentoring them, sharing my experiences, and walking them through the responsibilities that came with the role. I introduced them to key contacts and provided them with detailed documentation on the club’s operations, from organizing training sessions to managing logistics for competitions.

During this period, I made sure to stay closely involved, offering support whenever needed and answering any questions that arose. My goal was to ensure that the new president felt confident and equipped to lead, while also allowing them the space to bring in their ideas and make their mark on the club.

As I officially handed over the presidency, I transitioned into the role of a general consultant. Which allowed me to stay connected to the club while giving the new leadership flexibility needed to steer the club in its new direction. This transition marked the beginning of a new chapter for both the club and me, as I finally, left MSA CPC Community, a rising star among the students.

I’m happy with what I have accomplished for the community. I think I have done everything I could have possibly done to give members of the community the experience they deserve. I do apologize for any thing I did poorly or badly, this was truly, the best I could have done with the resources I was offered.