IIT Delhi student wins world’s largest coding contest

Kalash Gupta was felicitated by IIT Delhi Director after winning the global contest. (Image credit: IITDelhi/Facebook)

A student of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has won a prestigious global coding contest. Kalash Gupta was announced as the winner of TCS CodeVita, a computer programming competition that saw participation from over 1 lakh students across 87 countries.

CodeVita holds the Guinness World Record title of being the world’s largest computer programming competition. This year, Season 10 of CodeVita saw participation by over 100,000 students from 87 countries and one of the most competitive finales in the contest’s history, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said in a press release.

Kalash Gupta was announced as the winner of the competition and will walk home with the grand prize of $10,000. Students from Chile and Taiwan took home the first and second runner-up titles respectively. Mauricio Andres Cari Leal, from Chile, won $7,000 as the first runner up, while Jeffrey Ho of Taiwan was awarded $3,000.

Kalash Gupta was also felicitated by IIT Delhi Director Rangan Banerjee.

Speaking after receiving the news of his big win, Gupta said his confidence grew as the contest progressed.

“It’s unbelievable! When I started with the contest, I never thought I would even be in the top 3 but this is a very humbling experience,” said Gupta, who, according to Times of India, had secured third rank in the 2018 Joint Entrance Exam for admission to IITs.

“I’m very excited about the prize money. Initially I was not confident, as I took longer than I expected to solve the first problem. But as I progressed, solving some of the other problems, I gained more confidence over my final standing, and I was confident that I would be in the top 3,” the IIT Delhi student said.

Along with the prize money, the winners have also earned an internship opportunity with TCS’ Research & Innovation organization.