Aichi World: schoolchildren competed with leading programmers in Tashkent

Uzbekistan hosted the final of the international programming championship Yandex Cup, in which 200 specialists from 18 countries took part. The total prize fund amounted to 16 million rubles. For the first time, juniors from 14 to 18 years old participated in the championship, which has been held since 2011, and they solved the same tasks as specialists from leading IT companies. "Izvestia visited the competition, talked to the novice programmers and found out what projects they want to bring to the market in the future.

Programming with oriental flavor

Neil Ivanov, a student of the 11th grade, has been involved in computer science since his early years. Back in sixth grade, he learned that Sirius had a computer science shift, was selected, and went to the first gathering of young programmers in his life.

- Since then, I have continued to do this. I joined clubs, continued to go to Sirius shifts. And eventually I reached the finals of the Yandex Cup. I liked the opportunity to be abroad for the first time, to see the world's coolest people, whom I would not have met anywhere else but here. Because the best in the world in my field, in algorithms, have gathered here. And so I am very happy about this opportunity," the young man told Izvestia.

This year for the first time teenagers over 14 years old could participate in the contest for IT-specialists. A separate stream was allocated for juniors, whose participants competed in two areas - analytics and algorithm. Other competition groups were intended for experienced programmers: one for Yandex employees and another for specialists from any other organizations. These participants had access to six areas: analytics, frontend (development of user functions and interfaces), backend (development of site logic hidden from the user), mobile development, machine learning and algorithm. At the same time, the tasks of experienced programmers and juniors were the same.

- The tasks were complicated. Nobody solved everything in the end. Especially in juniors. But it was interesting. There is something to learn," said Arina Sadchikova, a freshman from Moscow.

It is important that all the tasks offered to the participants of the championship essentially repeat what they do in their daily work, but their solution requires more effort because of the higher complexity.

- For example, we had a task to make a schedule," Aurora Renard, a participant of the main frontend development area, told Izvestia. - Imagine that we are preparing for an event, such as a wedding. And we know that we can't hire a florist before we choose the venue, because it's up to the venue to decide what kind of flowers we need. And we need to sort these events so that everything is done chronologically correct. On the final we had a similar task, but from antiquity, when we distributed Caesar's affairs by priority. And we did all this not with the help of some records, but with the help of code.

On December 3, the main competition took place, and on December 4 - the Gold Final, where the best of the best competed. The prize fund amounted to a record 16 million rubles for the championship. The prize places were taken by 94 technical specialists from Russia, Belarus, Japan, USA, Great Britain and Portugal. The youngest winner was 17 years old.

In total, more than 20 thousand people from 90 countries applied for participation in the championship, 200 specialists from 18 countries reached the final: 120 developers and technical experts, 20 juniors and 60 employees of Yandex.

The Museum of Aichi and the precepts of Al-Khwarizmi

As for schoolchildren, they will continue to take part in the sports programming championship, Tatiana Kolinkova, head of the team working with the Olympiad community, told Izvestia.

- It seems very important to us to let schoolchildren write on a par with adults and experienced sports programmers. There are quite famous communities of sports programmers. And when you are young and you have an idol, you have been watching him for many years, how he writes contests, how he performs well, you want to be like him. And here you are writing with him literally at the next table," she noted. - And today we had a story when one of our students, Gimran Abdulin, beat his idol from the United States in the last round of the Gold Final.

The main theme of the championship final was digital civilization. As part of the tasks they studied the history and life of ancient civilizations with the help of modern technologies, as well as solved problems devoted to famous creations, events and personalities of the past. For example, participants deciphered ancient writings, analyzed trade routes and restored artifacts with the help of program code.

One of the areas of the finals site was the "Museum of Aiticity," where visitors could imagine how artifacts of modern IT culture would look like in a thousand years. The exposition included excavations of IT companies' offices, an art gallery reflecting the life of developers, and interactive zones related to their slang.

A separate space was dedicated to mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, the founder of algebra, who was born in what is now Uzbekistan. Participants could find out what his works are used in modern technologies and solve trigonometric and astronomical problems using the tools of that time.

- Our community of developers, engineers and analysts lives in different countries, speaks and writes code in different languages, but we are all united by a common IT-culture and the desire to solve the problems facing humanity," emphasized Sergey Berezhnoi, Yandex's Director for Developer Relations.

He also noted in his conversation with Izvestia that participation in the championship of the youngest programmers, including schoolchildren, will allow to prepare professionals for the IT-space of the future, and it does not matter in which company they will work, the main thing is that they will move technology forward.

The junior participants have already shared with Izvestia their plans for the future and said that they would like to bring to the market computer vision systems for waste sorting and eco-monitoring, programs for biotech, psychological help and other useful developments.