The 23rd edition of Africa and Arab Collegiate Programming Championship (ACPC) was held on March 19-23, in Luxor. It was organized by the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), under the auspices of the League of Arab States (LAS) Secretary-General, in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Health.

Twelve students, winners of the Egyptian Olympiad in Informatics (EOI) 2020, participated in ACPC2021, in four teams, one of which won the third place. The first-place winning team members are university students who won medals in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in previous years.

The idea behind the competition is based on developing students' abilities to use systematic solution methods and computer algorithms to solve industry-related problems through creating a program to solve problems in the best way and the shortest possible time. Each team consists of three students and a coach. Students work together to solve the largest number of problems in the shortest possible time, during the competition period, which lasts for five consecutive hours. The winning teams are qualified to participate in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC).
 
This year’s Championship is joined by 150 from 2,500 teams, 65 of which are Egyptian teams who participated in local contests.
 
ACPC is one of the major international scientific competitions for university students. Its history dates back to 1970 when Baylor University in Texas, U.S., organized the first international software competition with the aim of encouraging students to develop their programming skills and use systematic computer-based problem-solving methods. The aim was to help keep pace with today’s requirements, where programming has become a key element in our daily lives. Since 1970, the competition has been organized every year under the auspices of the world’s top universities.

In 1998, ACPC was hosted for the first time by an Arab country, Morocco. In 2001 and 2002, Egypt hosted the Championship for the first time, in Cairo, then AASTMT organized it in Alexandria, in 2007, 2008 and 2009. From 2013 to 2019, ACPC was organized in Sharm El Sheikh, with Egypt hosting it for 13 times.