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Topcoder

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Topcoder, a Wipro company, is a crowdsourcing company with a global open community of designers, developers, data scientists, and competitive programmers. Topcoder sells community services to corporate, mid-size, and small-business clients, and pays community members for their work on the projects.[1][2][3] Topcoder also organizes the annual Topcoder Open Tournament, and a series of smaller Topcoder Regional events.

Topcoder, Inc.
IndustryInformation Technology Staffing
Software
Outsourcing services
FoundedApril, 2001
FounderJack Hughes
Headquarters
Indianapolis, IN
,
USA
ParentWipro
Websitewww.topcoder.com

Topcoder Company

Topcoder was founded in 2001 by Jack Hughes, Chairman and Founder of Tallan company.[1][2][3] Originally, it was running regular competitive programming challenges, known as Single Round Matches (SRMs) – timed, 1.5 hours algorithm competitions, in which contestants compete against each other to solve the same set of problems; and Marathon Matches – longer and more difficult algorithmic contests.[1] The target auditory were school and college students; and high prizes, $5k - $10k per match, from corporate sponsors, were offered for tournament winners to bolster the interest in the community.[1]

As the community grew, in 2003-05 Topcoder started to offer software development services to 3-rd party clients, contracting individual community members to work on specific tasks; though most of the revenue still cam from consulting services provided to clients by Topcoder employees.[1][3] From 2006 Topcoder also holds design competition, thus offering design services to the clients.[1]

In attempts to optimize expenses, in 2007-08 Topcoder introduced new competition tracks, and delegated more work from its employees to the community. By 2009 the size of Topcoder stuff reduced to 16 project managers servicing ~35 clients, while most of the actual job was done by the community via crowdsourcing. Topcoder representatives claim that at this point their community had about 170k registered members, and the company's annual revenue was about ~$19m.[1][3][4]

In 2013 Topcoder was acquired by Appirio, and Topcoder Community, ~500k members strong back then, was merged, under Topcoder brand, with the 75k members strong crowdsourcing community Cloudspokes, created and managed by Apprio.[3][5][6][7]

In 2016 Topcoder, along with Appirio, was acquired by Wipro as a part of $500m deal, and continued operate as a separate company under its own brand.[3][8][9][10][11] That year it also reached the milestone of 1 million registered members.[12]

Notable Clients and Projects

NASA

In 2010 NASA asked Topcoder community to optimize the content of medical kits for future human space exploration missions.[13] In 2013 NASA Tournament Lab cooperated with Topcoder to run data-science challenges targeting to improve computer vision algorithms for their Robonaut 2 humanoid robot;[14][15][16] in another challenge Topcoder members were asked to develop algorithms for optimization of ISS solar arrays usage.[17] Also in 2013 Topcoder helped NASA to develop software solution for tracking food consumption by astornauts.[18] In another challenge, Topcoder community helped NASA and National Geographic's explorer Albert Lin to develop an algorithm to identify human-build structures in Genghis Khan's homeland.[19] In 2014, Asteroid Data Hunter, Asteroid Tracker, and a number of other challenges were carried on to develop better algorithms for asteroids detection in space images.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] In 2015 Topcoder Data Science community was challenged by NASA, Quakefinder, Harward Crowd Innovation Lab, and Amazon Web Services, to come up with an algorithm that finds correlations between ultra-low frequency electromagnetic signals emanaging from the earth, and subsequent moderate and large earhquakes[40][41]. In 2017 NASA, HeroX, and Topcoder announced a challege to optimize their computational-intensive software solution for fluid dynamics, FUN3D,[42][43][44][45][46] which was cancelled later due to a high number of applicants (more than 1,800) during the registration, coupled with concerns about control over the public distribution of the software to optimize.[47]

Business model

Topcoder sells software licenses to use the growing body of components that have been developed in competition and also acts as an outsourcing center, allowing companies to farm out custom design and development tasks to Topcoder competitors. Competitors involved in the creation of these components are paid royalties based on these sales.

The software resulting from algorithm competitions—and the less-frequent marathon matches—is not usually directly useful, but sponsor companies sometimes provide money to pay the victors. Statistics (including an overall "rating" for each developer) are tracked over time for competitors in each category.[citation needed]

Types of competitions

  • Algorithms (competition length about two hours): Competitors are given a set (usually three) of algorithmic problems and have 75 minutes to correctly solve as many as they can. Topcoder has been hosting algorithm competitions since 2001.[citation needed]
  • Software Design (competition length one week): Topcoder hosts graphic design and development competitions in which coders can compete to create components and applications that are either generally useful, or that third parties have contracted for. Competitors are given a set of user requirements and attempt to convert them into a usable software design specification. Their efforts are judged on a variety of "real-world" criteria on how correct and practical their design is.[citation needed]
  • Development (competition length one week): Competitors are given a set of design specification and attempt to write software components that match this specification. These components are judged on their functionality and coding style.[citation needed]
  • Marathon Matches (competition length one or two weeks): Contestants are given a particularly difficult algorithmic problem. The scoring is done by computer based on criteria specifically suited to the problem.[citation needed]
  • Studio (graphic design): Contestants are asked to show off their creative skills in a competitive environment.[citation needed]
  • Architecture Assembly Topcoder has created Assembly Competitions as an extension of Component Design and Development Competitions. Through these competitions, competitors create high quality applications using completed components and Topcoder's established competitive method.[citation needed]
  • Testing[citation needed]
  • Bug Races Project teams, clients and members are able to log bugs they find in software developed and supported by Topcoder. Topcoder will communicate these bugs to the member community. Bugs that are open to the community will be posted on the Active Bug Races page.[citation needed]

Prizes

Topcoder initially awarded money every week to coders who did well in the weekly competitions, or Single Round Matches (SRMs). For a while, prize money was only awarded twice a year to winners and finalists of the Topcoder Collegiate Challenge (TCCC, which is in the spring) and the Topcoder Open (formerly the Invitational, which is in the fall). As of June 2005, some weekly SRMs began to once again award prize money, being sponsored by outside companies such as Google and Yahoo!. However, since August 2008 Topcoder returned to giving money prizes only to winners and finalists of other tournaments.[citation needed]

Statistics

As of May 3, 2016 Topcoder has more than 997,507 registered members.[48]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Lakhani KR, Garvin DA, Lonstein E (January 2010). "TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing". Harvard Business School Case: 610–032.
  2. ^ a b DIamandis, Peter (March 20, 2013). "TopCoder's 5 Steps to Building a Global Workforce Community". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 15 April 2016. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  3. ^ a b c d e f Mitra, Sramana (January 2, 2018). "Genesis to Acquisition: Mike Morris, CEO of Topcoder". One Million by One Million Blog. Retrieved March 30, 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  4. ^ Kanaracus, Chris (October 15, 2008). "TopCoder eyeing SMB market". InfoWorld. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  5. ^ Klemp, Nicole (November 19, 2015). "Appirio is Making Big Changes to the Topcoder Community and Improving the Member Experience". Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  6. ^ TechCrunch report Lunden, Ingrid (September 17, 2013). "Appirio Buys TopCoder To Add More Crowdsourcing, And 500K Developers And Designers, To Its CloudSpokes Network". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2014-01-15. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  7. ^ Clancy, Heather (January 21, 2014). "Appirio officially unifies CloudSpokes and topcoder". ZD Net. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  8. ^ Kheterpal, Gaurav (October 24, 2016). "Wipro Acquires Appirio - A Topcoder Community Member's Perspective". Topcoder Blog. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  9. ^ Phadnisi, Shilpa (October 21, 2016). "Appirio's TopCoder too is a big catch for Wipro". The Times of India. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  10. ^ Morris, Mike (October 20, 2016). "News Item: Wipro Acquires Appirio". Topcoder Blog. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  11. ^ Sayer, Peter (October 20, 2016). "Wipro is buying cloud consultant Appirio for $500M". PCWorld. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  12. ^ "Topcoder Community: 1 Million Members Strong". Topcoder Blog. May 8, 2016. Retrieved April 4, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  13. ^ "TopCoder Community Refines Medical Kits For Future NASA Space Missions". Solar Daily. July 28, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  14. ^ Kolawole, Emi (March 29, 2013). "NASA and TopCoder to issue Robonaut 2 "sight" challenge". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  15. ^ "NASA + Topcoder Team-Up on an Advanced Robotics Algorithm Challenge". Topcoder Blog. February 6, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  16. ^ Miller, Sarah (January 18, 2013). "NASA, TopCoder Announce $30,000 Contest to Maximize Power Output to ISS". Nature World News. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  17. ^ Zimmer, Sylvan (February 6, 2013). "Optimizing the ISS solar arrays, a Python solution to the NASA Longeron Challenge". Sylvan Zimmer's Blog. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  18. ^ Burke, Adrienne (February 26, 2013). "NASA Asks The "Crowd" To Help Track What Astronauts Eat". Forbes. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  19. ^ "TopCoder Teams with NASA and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Albert Lin to Create a Powerful Algorithm that Identifies Human-Built Structures in Genghis Khan's Homeland". CISION. PR NewsWire. September 12, 2013. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  20. ^ "Asteroid Data Hunter Challenge". NASA. March 17, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  21. ^ "Asteroid Data Hunter App". Solar System Exploration Research. Virtual Institute. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  22. ^ "NTL Asteroid Data Hunter". GitHub. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  23. ^ "Download NASA's Asteriod Data Hunter software and help save the plant". Astronomy Now. March 16, 2015. Retrieved April 6, 2015. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  24. ^ "NASA & Planetary Resources Asteroid Data Hunter Challenge". YouTube. March 17, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  25. ^ Wall, Mike (March 11, 2014). "NASA Offers Cash Prizes for Help Hunting Dangerous Asteroids". Space.com. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  26. ^ Dredge, Stuart. "Nasa Asteroid Data Hunter contest hopes humans will outsmart dinosaurs". The Guardian. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  27. ^ Rowley, Melissa (October 27, 2014). "A look at how NASA is tapping into the open source revolution". CISCO The Network. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  28. ^ Otto, Greg (August 12, 2014). "NASA taps massive coding community for deep space solutions". FedScoop. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  29. ^ "NASA's Asteroid Tracker". YouTube. June 13, 2014. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  30. ^ "NASA & Planetary Resources Asteroids Data Hunter App". asteroids.topcoder.com. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  31. ^ "Topcoder and the Challenges of Mankind - Solving the Stuff of Dreams". Topcoder Blog. August 7, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  32. ^ "Asteroids, v2.0 - Help Identify Asteroids & Protect Planet Earth". Topcoder Blog. August 8, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  33. ^ "Climate Resilience Data Challenge - $35k in Prizes". Topcoder Blog. December 9, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2014. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  34. ^ "Name NASA's New Free Flying Robot!". Topcoder Blog. October 7, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  35. ^ "NASA's Asteroid Data Hunter Launch at SXSW". Topcoder Blog. April 16, 2015. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  36. ^ "NASA's Asteroid Data Hunter. Machine Learning Algorithm". Topcoder. Customer Stories. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  37. ^ Teitel, Amy Shira (August 10, 2014). "NASA Is Contest-Sourcing Solutions to Its Deepest Problems". Motherboard. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  38. ^ "Name NASA New Free-Flying Robot and Win $1,000!". Applied Technology Institute. October 16, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  39. ^ "NASA Plans To Deploy These Crowdsourcing Projects In Space". Fast Company. Fast Feed. July 8, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  40. ^ "Make a Difference, Win Prizes in NASA's Quest for Quakes". Topcoder Blog. July 22, 2015. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  41. ^ "NASA hosts "Quest for Quakes" data challenge". Phys.org. July 27, 2015. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  42. ^ Gee, Sue (May 8, 2017). "NASA High Performance Fast Computing Challenge". I Programmer. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  43. ^ Williams, Matt (May 5, 2017). "Faster Supercomputer! NASA Announces The High Performance Fast Computing Challenge". Universe Today. Space and Astronomy News. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  44. ^ O'Neill, Ian (May 8, 2017). "NASA Wants Your Code! Boost Supercomputer Software Speed and Win $55,000". Space.com. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  45. ^ "NASA Issues a Challenge to Speed Up Its Supercomputer Code". NASA. October 1, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2014. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  46. ^ "Know Fortran, optimize NASA code, make money". Silverton Consulting Blog. May 7, 2017. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  47. ^ Murtha, Maureen (June 16, 2017). "NASA Cancels its High Performance Fast Computing Challenge". NASA Tournament Lab. Retrieved April 6, 2018. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  48. ^ "Community Overview". Topcoder.com. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  • Official website
  • Business data for Topcoder, Inc.:
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