Google Announces Winner of the 2005 Google Code Jam; Marek Cygan from Poland Codes His Way to $10,000 Grand Prize.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) today announced Marek Cygan, a student at Warsaw University, as the grand prize winner of the 2005 Google Code Jam, Google's annual computer programming competition. Cygan competed against 14,500 registrants from around the world, more than double the number of competitors from years past, to bring home the $10,000 grand prize.

"It's an honor to host the most talented computer programmers in the world," said Alan Eustace, vice president, Engineering and Research, Google Inc. "With more than twice as many participants in the Google Code Jam this year, competition was fierce. Congratulations to Marek and all of our finalists."

The second place winner was Erik-Jan Krijgsman, a student at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and the third place winner was Petr Mitrichev, a student at Moscow State University in Russia. Both received a $5,000 cash prize.

Additional cash prizes were awarded to the other top 100 finalists, who came from 32 countries ranging from Scandinavia to Southeast Asia. Google flew all finalists to its Mountain View, Calif. headquarters to compete in the championship round of the coding competition. In 2004, Sergio Sancho, a student at the University of Buenos Aires, took home the grand prize.

This is the third year of the Google Code Jam, which is produced in conjunction with TopCoder, the leader in online programming competition, skills assessment and competitive software development. The Google Code Jam is a celebration of the art of computer science, and signals to programmers everywhere the value Google places on excellent coding.

The competition, which began August 22, attracted 14,500 participants from more than 32 countries. All entrants participated in an initial qualification round with 500 progressing to the second round. The top 100 scorers from round two were brought to Google for the finals. Programming in the competition can be done in Java, C++, C# or VB.NET languages.

More information about Google Code Jam 2005 can be found at http://www.google.com/codejam.

About Google Inc.

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