73 coders, 19 universities: Pafos Camp 2026 turned Pafos into an ICPC training ground

While most of the island was at the beach, 73 competitive programmers from 19 universities spent the second half of August in Pafos doing something harder: solving algorithmic problems, eight hours a day.

Neapolis University Pafos hosted Pafos Camp 2026 from 19 August, with support from the JetBrains Foundation. It is one of the bigger international training camps in competitive programming, and it exists for a specific reason — teams use it to prepare for the ICPC Regionals and World Finals.

The guest list reads like a shortlist of Europe's strongest CS faculties: the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Delft University of Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Charles University, Hasso Plattner Institute, Utrecht University, the University of Warsaw, the University of Wroclaw, Eötvös Loránd University, the University of Belgrade, Nazarbayev University, Constructor University, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics — and the host, Neapolis University Pafos.

The daily format was training, algorithmic drills, problem analysis, team solving and upsolving sessions. No slides, no panels. Just problem sets.

Pafos Cup 2026: the scoreboard

The camp's own contest, the Pafos Cup 2026, ran on 24 August:

• 1st — Segfault go BRRR (Delft University of Technology)
• 2nd — Infinite Loopers (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)
• 3rd — HKOI-1 (University of Oxford)
• 4th — UAIC TheOnesWhoKnock (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași)
• 5th — Snack Underflow (Aarhus University)
• 6th — Ω (Neapolis University Pafos)

A home team finishing sixth in that field is a genuinely good result.

Why this is on hackathon.cy

Two reasons. First, it is one more sign that Cyprus is becoming a place international tech talent travels to, not just from — the award ceremony drew the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy, the Acting Mayor of Pafos and MP Nikoleta Konstantinou, with the Municipality of Geroskipou providing sports facilities.

Second, competitive programming is the quiet feeder pipeline for everything else on this site. The people who train at camps like this are the same people who show up on winning hackathon teams — and the algorithmic muscle is what interviewers at the island's product companies actually test for.

If you are a student in Cyprus who codes, this is worth having on your radar for next August.

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