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INSAT ACM Student Chapter runs on two tracks — competitive programming, and IT: web development, AI and DevOps. Workshops every week, labs and hackathons on top.

Join usDiscover ACM
Date
16 September 2026 · 12:30 PM
Location
A4 INSAT
Who can join
Open to everyone
Founded at INSAT
2017Founded at INSAT
Chartered by ACM
2018Chartered by ACM
Focus tracks: CP & IT
2Focus tracks: CP & IT
Workshops, all year
WeeklyWorkshops, all year

About

What ACM is, and what we do with it at INSAT

The Association for Computing Machinery

Founded in 1947, ACM is the world's largest computing society — it publishes much of the field's research and awards the Turing Award. Its student chapters give members early access to that world: the literature, the competitions and the community.

ACM INSAT

Founded at INSAT in April 2017 and chartered by ACM the year after. We run on two tracks — competitive programming, and IT (web, AI, DevOps and software engineering) — with several workshops every week, labs and challenges on top, and two contests we host ourselves: CodeQuest for beginners and WinterCup for experts. It's run by students, for anyone who wants to build.

Our mission

A place to build real technical skill outside the curriculum — weekly workshops on both tracks, labs to apply them, and contests to measure yourself against. Open to everyone.

Who runs the chapter

  • Houssem Chourou — PresidentSoftware engineering, 4th year
  • Ahmed Loubiri — Vice-presidentSoftware engineering, 4th year

How we work

  • You learn by building, not by watching.
  • Two tracks, one club — you can follow both.
  • Beginners are the point, not an inconvenience: CodeQuest exists for them.
  • Something happens every week, not once a semester.
  • Everything we run is free, and open to everyone.

A student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, at Institut National des Sciences Appliquées et de Technologie (INSAT), Université de Carthage.

What we do

Two tracks: competitive programming, and IT

Every workshop, lab and challenge we run belongs to one of these two. You are not asked to choose on day one — plenty of members follow both, and the first semester is for finding out which one you keep coming back to.

Track 1 of 2

Competitive Programming

Algorithms, data structures, contests.

Solving hard problems fast and correctly. Weekly workshops take a topic — graphs, DP, number theory — then straight into problems. It feeds our two contests and the teams we send to national competitions.

What it covers

  • Algorithms & Problem Solving

    The core of the CP track: complexity, data structures, graphs, dynamic programming — taught topic by topic, then practised on problems.

  • Contest Training

    Timed practice under contest rules, team training in threes, and post-contest editorials on what the intended solution was.

Track 2 of 2

IT & Development

Web development, AI, DevOps, and the engineering around them.

Everything you use to build and ship real software: web, AI and machine learning, DevOps and cloud, plus the habits — version control, review, testing — that hold a project together. Hands-on: you leave with something running on your own machine.

What it covers

  • Web Development

    Front-end and back-end work — building, shipping and maintaining applications people actually use.

  • AI & Machine Learning

    From the maths underneath to practical model training and evaluation, applied to problems you choose.

  • DevOps & Cloud

    Linux, containers, CI/CD and deployment — how code gets from your laptop to a machine someone else depends on.

  • Software Engineering

    Version control, code review, testing and architecture — the habits that separate a script from a system.

Activities

What a week — and a year — at ACM INSAT looks like

The backbone is weekly: several workshops every week, split between the two tracks. Labs, challenges and hackathons sit on top of that, and the two competitions we host anchor the year. Everything below is open to members at no cost.

  1. WorkshopCP trackSeveral every week

    Weekly CP workshops

    Every week, one or more sessions on the competitive programming track. A trainer takes a topic, works through it on the board, then hands out problems you solve in the room with people who can unblock you.

  2. WorkshopIT trackSeveral every week

    Weekly IT workshops

    The same rhythm on the IT side: web development, AI, DevOps and the tooling around them. Hands-on from the first minute — bring a laptop, leave with something that runs.

  3. LabBoth tracksThroughout the semester

    Labs

    Longer guided sessions where you build something end to end instead of following slides — a deployment pipeline, a small service, a model trained on real data.

  4. ChallengeBoth tracksA few times a year

    Challenges & hackathons

    Short, intense events on top of the weekly schedule: hackathons and problem-solving sprints — including DataOverflow, which we run with IEEE. You form a team, you have a deadline, and at the end something either works or it does not.

  5. CompetitionCP trackOnce a year each

    CodeQuest & WinterCup

    The two competitions the chapter hosts itself — CodeQuest for beginners, WinterCup for experienced competitors. Both are described in detail below.

Events

Bigger events, run with other clubs

Some things are too big for a single evening — and better with more than one club behind them.

ACM INSATIEEE

DataOverflow

A series of workshops that ends in a hackathon.

Run jointly by ACM INSAT and IEEE: a run of related workshops, each building on the last, closing with a hackathon where teams put the whole series to work under a deadline. The workshops are the preparation — the hackathon is where it lands.

Format
Workshop series → final hackathon · teams · on-site
When
January - February 2027

  1. Phase 1

    The workshop series

    Several linked sessions across the event, taught in order so that each one assumes the last. Hands-on throughout — you build as you go rather than taking notes for later.

  2. Phase 2

    The closing hackathon

    The finale. Teams take everything the series covered and ship something against a deadline, judged at the end. Open to everyone who followed the workshops, and the reason the series is worth following from the start.

Competitions

Two contests we host: CodeQuest and WinterCup

Both are competitive programming events, pitched at deliberately different levels. CodeQuest is where you start; WinterCup is what you train for.

CodeQuest

Beginner level

Our entry-level contest, written for first-timers: the problem set starts at implementation and basic reasoning, and the point is to finish with something solved. A few weeks of CP workshops and you're ready.

  • Built for first-time competitors — no prior contest experience needed.
  • Teams of three, so your first contest is not a solo experience.
  • Problems ramp from straightforward implementation to standard algorithms.
  • The natural next step after the weekly CP workshops.
Format
Teams of 3 · ICPC-style · on-site · ~8 hours
When
November 2026 (exact date TBD)

WinterCup

Expert level

Our advanced contest, and the hardest thing we run — a set where the standings come down to the last two problems. It's where the club's strongest teams train before national competitions.

  • Expert-level problem set, ICPC-style difficulty curve.
  • For competitors who already train regularly on the CP track.
  • Serious preparation ground for national contests.
Format
Teams of 3 · ICPC-style · on-site · ~8 hours
When
February 2027 (exact date TBD)

Why join

What you actually get

No promises about changing your life. Here is the concrete list.

  • Skills you can demonstrate

    Structured practice in a domain you choose, with people who can tell you what you're getting wrong.

  • Projects with other people

    Team work with real constraints — reviews, deadlines, and code that has to run on someone else's machine.

  • Workshops every week

    Multiple sessions a week across the two tracks, on tools and topics the curriculum doesn't cover, or covers too late.

  • Contests to aim at

    CodeQuest if you are starting out, WinterCup once you are not, plus hackathons in between — a reason to practise and a way to measure progress.

  • A network that outlasts the club

    Seniors, alumni and members across every specialisation at INSAT — the people you'll ask for help for years.

  • Career groundwork

    Internship and opportunity sharing, CV and interview practice, and experience worth putting on one.

Team

Meet the team

The people who run the chapter and the sessions. Say hi on Facebook.

Connect

Follow what we're doing

Sessions, results and announcements go out on our channels first.

Join us

Join ACM INSAT

Applications are open to everyone — no prior experience required. Pick a track, or both, and tell us what you want to learn.

  • Everyone is eligible

    Any year, any specialisation. Prépa students included.

  • No experience needed

    Tell us what you want to learn. That is the whole requirement.

  • Three minutes

    Nine short questions, most of them optional.

Join us

Applications are open now — we reply by email.

See you at the Integration Day

Come talk to us at the stand, or apply now and we'll find you.

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