Three Harvard students are heading to the Netherlands this week to compete with 61 other three-person teams from around the world in an international software programming competition whose aim is to identify the next generation of computer software wizards.

The competition -- the world finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest -- takes place at the Technical University of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, from April 8 to 11. The Harvard students participating are Matthew Caywood, a senior from Leverett House; Russell Cox, a junior from Currier House; and Elliot Shmukler, a senior from Adams House.

The contest is organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and sponsored by IBM. The contest aims to test the participants' programming savvy, creativity, and teamwork.

During the contest, students work with team members to write a software program, test, and debug it. The team that solves the most problems in the fewest attempts in the shortest period of time will be the winner.

The competition was established in 1970 by the ACM, an international scientific and educational organization established to promote information technology. This year's finalists were chosen from 2,000 teams in regional contests held from October to December 1998.