Antivirus firm Trend Micro Inc. announced on Jan. 4 a computer programming contest open to local university students. The price? A million pesos plus a chance to work for the antivirus company.

Trend Micro has decided to hold this contest in the Philippines as part of its recruitment activities in the country, according to Jeffery Sy, business development manager for Trend Micro Philippines. The contest was initially held in Taiwan.

Trend Micro plans to operate a round-the-clock global research and support services center in the Philippines. The local subsidiary currently employs 180 people--most of whom are Filipinos.

Trend Micro indicates that the Philippines was chosen to host this kind of contest because of the good reputation of Filipinos in the field of software development.

Incidentally, Filipino programmers employed by the local subsidiary came out with arguably the first antidote to the infamous ILOVEYOU virus that infected millions of computers worldwide.

The contest is open to all Filipino college students. As of this writing, two teams from Ateneo University have joined the contest, while 15 representatives from other schools have signified interest. Each team will be composed of 5 members.

Interested parties can register at Trend Micro’s website (www.antivirus.com/ph) starting Jan. 4 until Jan. 13. By Jan. 15, the antivirus firm will announce the contest theme to the participants, who in turn, should send their respective entries within five days. Any programming language, including C++, Visual Basic, and Java, can be used to create programs for the contest. Of course, game programs are not allowed.

Results of an online knockout competition will be posted at the Trend Micro website on Jan. 29. Six teams will be chosen to compete for the grand competition on Feb. 10 to 12. During that period, all the teams will be housed in Trend Micro’s MML Development Center in Antipolo City.

"This whole exercise aims to evaluate the skill of Filipino programmers in Internet- and network-related software," said Ieta Chi, general manager for Trend Micro Philippines. "We really don’t intend to use the software the winners have created. But if they do want

to develop it further, then that’s their choice."