The Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) is a fun challenge for students with an interest in programming. Designed to
be both accessible to students with some programming experience and to challenge the keenest programmers at the
secondary-school level, the CCC helps students build confidence and grow their ability to design, understand and
implement algorithms.
Approximately 20 of the top senior participants from the CCC are invited to the Canadian Computing Olympiad (CCO) at the University of Waterloo.
Students may choose to write either the junior or senior level of the competition.
The CCC is held online in February. The CCO is invitation only and held in May. Visit Our Contests for dates and deadlines for the current year.
To learn more about the format of the competition, including the allowed programming languages and the type of questions students can expect, visit CCC Format and Languages.
The Junior competition begins with straightforward topics like basic loops and conditions and progresses to advanced material, like recursion, two-dimensional arrays and efficient or clever algorithms. The Senior competition increases in difficulty from basic algorithms to more advanced algorithms, like careful counting and some mathematical reasoning, with the final question typically involving material at the level of the International Olympiad in Informatics.
Visit Canadian Computing Competition Supervision for more information.
We recommend that students spend some time preparing for the competition — they can do so with:
A week-long learning experience involving workshops, a contest and other extra-curricular activities, this
invitation-only event is also used to determine participation in the International Olympiad in
Informatics (IOI), which is hosted by a different country each year.
Approximately 20 of the top CCC senior participants classified as Canadian School Official are invited
to the CCO at the University of Waterloo each spring. Selection of CCO participants and the Canadian IOI team
members is at the discretion of the CEMC Executive.
To learn more about our contests, follow the links below to get started:
Questions? We invite you to contact us.