Winner of International Olympiad in Informatics 2023 Enrolled in HSE University FCS Programme

© HSE University

Valery Rodionov, member of the Russian team who took gold at the 2023 International Olympiad in Informatics, has enrolled at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science. The intellectual competition took place in early September in Hungary.

The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is a competition in which high school students from different countries solve algorithmic problems.

The selection for the Russian national team for the international olympiad was carried out following the results of training camps and the All-Russian Olympiad of Schoolchildren in Informatics (many of its tasks were developed by students of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science in 2023).

2023 Russian team:

 Gimran Abdullin, School No. 2, Kazan

 Ivan Piskarev, School No. 2086, Moscow

 Valery Rodionov, KFU N.I. Lobachevsky Lyceum, Kazan

 Anton Stepanov, ‘Second School’ Lyceum named after V.F. Ovchinnikov, Moscow

Each participant competes individually, trying to score the maximum number of points by solving three algorithmic problems on each day of the competition.

Valery Rodionov, first-year student of the ‘Applied Mathematics and Information Science’ Programme

The tasks on offer were more difficult than usual, so it was possible to win without 100 percent solving any single problem. The first round went well for me. I managed my time properly and scored good points in all the tasks. In the second round, I chose the wrong task and spent too much time on it. It made me worry and I scored only the minimum required points for all the tasks, but this turned out to be enough to win gold.

Mikhail Gustokashin, Director of the Centre of Student Competitions at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science

'Today's school olympiad winners will be tomorrow’s winners of much more complex student olympiads, and then will be sought-after specialists in science and high-tech industry. Preparing for programming competitions is a process that requires thousands of hours of hard work. At student competitions, success is most often achieved by those who started their training at school. The staff and students of the FCS conduct and participate in lots of olympiads and various educational and training events for schoolchildren, such as the Summer School in Computer Science and Yandex shift at Sirius in December. Advanced training courses for computer science teachers is another faculty activity.'

Philipp Gribov, expert at the Centre of Student Competitions at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, says that he got interested in olympiad computer science at school.

Philipp Gribov, expert at the Centre of Student Competitions

‘Having started my studies at HSE University, I taught olympiad programming and have worked as a coach of the national computer science team for two years now. One of the events that can help students prepare for participation in major competitions and olympiads in computer science is the Summer School in Computer Science, which the faculty has been conducting for eight years.’

Philipp Gribov adds that Alexander Babin, who scored the best result among Russian schoolchildren at IOI in 2022, participated in the summer schools in 2021 and 2022. Ivan Piskarev, member of the Russian national team this year, took part in the school two years in a row (in 2022 and 2023). Long preparation and diligent training helped Ivan to score 401 points in the overall standings at the IOI, take tenth place in the overall table, and come first among all Russian schoolchildren this year.

Ivan Safonov, second-year student of the master's programme ‘Math of Machine Learning’

After being selected for the olympiad, the team members prepared by solving the IOI round tasks and other olympiad tasks from previous years. We discussed strategy and mistakes with them. Just before IOI 2023, we had short training sessions, where the students solved tasks of three rounds in real conditions. This year's tasks turned out to be the most difficult in the history of the olympiad. They seemed very good to me—it was interesting to solve them and discuss them with the students after the competition round.

At IOI, the most important goal of students is to get gold, and I am glad that all members of the Russian national team succeeded. I was also pleased that Ivan Piskarev achieved the best score among all participants of the olympiad for one mathematical problem.