Facebook begin registrations for its annual hacking contest

The social networking said that the top prize will be USD 10,000 as against USD 5,000 last year, and as many 25 of the best hackers will be taken to visit Facebook's headquarters in the USA.

The Facebook Hacker Cup is an annual worldwide programming competition where hackers compete against each other for fame, fortune, glory and a shot at the coveted Hacker Cup.

"The competition will be held in two rounds, starting with an online qualification round, out of which 25 of the best hackers will be flown by Facebook to its headquarters in Menlo Park, CA," the Facebook statement said.

"The preliminary round will be held between January 25 and February 16, while the onsite final round is scheduled for March 22 to March 23. Contestants will be judged on accuracy and speed as they race to solve algorithmic problems to advance through up to five rounds of programming challenges," it added.

Last year, the Hacker Cup attracted 8,000 participants from 150 countries, with the winner - Roman Andreev, hailing from Russia, the statement said.

"Hacking is core to how we build at Facebook. Whether we're building a prototype for a major product like Timeline at a Hackathon, creating a smarter search algorithm, or tearing down walls at our new headquarters, we're always hacking to find better ways to solve problems," Facebook said in its Hacker's Cup page.

Facebook said that those who registered the previous year are automatically registered for the competition. However, they still need to check if their information is updated.