Two HSE Teams Reach ICPC Finals
HSE students delivered an outstanding performance in the semi-final round of the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which took place in St Petersburg on December 15–17, 2025. Two teams—FFTilted from HSE University–Moscow and Muffix Sassif from HSE University–Nizhny Novgorod—will represent the university at the ICPC World Finals, scheduled for 2026. Other HSE teams also won gold and bronze medals. These results confirm the high level of training of HSE students in competitive programming.
In the ICPC semi-final, Faculty of Computer Science team FFTilted solved 12 out of 13 problems and was the overall leader of the contest. The team consisted of Alexander Babin, Kirill Kudriashov, and Fedor Romashov, undergraduate students on the Applied Mathematics and Information Science programme. The team’s coaches were Mikhail Gustokashin, Director of the Centre of Student Competitions at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, and Alexandra Sytnik, Project Manager at the same centre.
‘Our team, in its current line-up, has been performing successfully at Russian and international competitive programming contests for several years,’ said Kirill Kudriashov, a member of FFTilted. ‘Winning the ICPC semi-final this season was our first victory in four seasons of participation, which makes this result especially meaningful. Each of us makes an important contribution to the overall result. Alexander [Babin] is a mathematical genius, I write code faster than anyone else, and Fedor [Romashov] writes error-free code faster than anyone. Additional motivation came from competing with the strong HSE team BasketBobr, whose members are former ICPC finalists. This rivalry helped us stay fully focused throughout the entire contest. We hope for a successful result at the next stage of ICPC.’
Muffix Sassif, a team from HSE University–Nizhny Novgorod, also qualified for the ICPC finals. Its members—Ilian Andrianov, Vsevolod Lepeshov, and Artem Shulyatev—solved seven problems in five hours. The team has been competing in ICPC in this line-up for four years and trains extensively. According to the participants, the St Petersburg semi-final did not start well for them, but thanks to their experience and determination, they managed to pull themselves together and achieve an excellent result.
Anna Blyakhman
Anna Blyakhman, Director of HSE University–Nizhny Novgorod, expressed her pride in the students: ‘Their qualification for the ICPC finals is the result of long and hard work. Behind this success are hundreds of hours of training and strong support from lecturers, mentors, and our reliable partner, NEIMARK University. And of course, it is yet another confirmation that HSE University–Nizhny Novgorod is a place where truly strong students come together, grow professionally, achieve outstanding results, and represent our region and country with dignity on the international stage.’
Two more Faculty of Computer Science teams—BasketBobr (Anton Stepanov, Alexey Vasilyev, Alexey Mikhnenko) and Disagree (Petr Losev, Timofey Ravnushkin, Yaroslav Semenyuk)—also became gold medallists.
Among the bronze medallists were two teams from the HSE Faculty of Computer Science: No souvenirs (Daria Grekova, Alexander MacNeil, Ivan Piskarev) and labubu with matcha (Artem Agafonov, Prokhor Larichev, Gleb Ustimenko).
The final results of the semi-final are available via the link.
In total, 13 teams from HSE University took part in the regional finals. All campuses were represented—Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Perm—demonstrating the broad reach and depth of the university’s IT culture.
Mikhail Gustokashin
Mikhail Gustokashin, Director of the Centre of Student Competitions, emphasised: ‘For the first time in history, teams from a single university took the top three places in the Northern Eurasia semi-final. This was made possible by many years of work to build a system for attracting talented applicants and training teams. Our teams’ victory is an achievement of the whole of HSE University. Preparation for olympiads takes place not only during training sessions, but also throughout regular classes. For example, one of the problems required implementing training and modelling the operation of a large language model in a very limited amount of time. The knowledge gained in the machine learning course helped our students cope with this task quickly.’
Alexandra Sytnik
Alexandra Sytnik, Project Manager at the Centre of Student Competitions, noted: ‘In some ways, the ICPC semi-final is even more nerve-racking than the final. Here, you support all the teams from your university, knowing that only one advances to the next stage. It is important not only to share the joy with the winners, but also to support the other teams. All our teams showed strong results, achieved primarily through intensive training. To maintain motivation to continue competing and practising, Faculty of Computer Science semi-finalists receive a Competitive Programming Achievements Scholarship.’
The International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) is one of the most prestigious student programming competitions. Teams of three students from the same university solve algorithmic problems against the clock over five hours. The contest consists of several stages: qualifiers, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals. The qualifier stage is held at each university. This year, 167 teams from HSE University–Moscow took place, 31 of which advanced to the ICPC quarter-finals—a record for the Moscow region.
See also:
HSE Students Win IX CTF Russian Cup
The CTF Russian Cup is one of the country’s key cybersecurity competitions and is held in the CTF (capture the flag) format. The semi-finals and the final took place in December at the Smart City Pavilion at VDNH. The winners were the HSE student team VDNKh, whose members are students of the HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM) and the HSE Faculty of Computer Science.
Techarena Training Camp in Sports Programming Held at HSE University
The HSE University Faculty of Computer Science has hosted the third Techarena Challenge competition and the HSE Techarena Training Camp. More than 130 teams from Russian and international universities took part, competing to solve an optimisation problem. The on-site round, which was scored individually, lasted four hours.
HSE University's FCS Team Wins BSUIR Open Sports Programming Championship
On April 26, 2025, the student final of the 13th Open Team Championship in Sports Programming of Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics took place in Minsk (Belarus). More than 300 teams took part in the semi-final of the competition, while only 29 teams took part in the final, including three teams from HSE University, which ended up taking first, third, and fifth places.
HSE Student among Winners of Yandex Cup 2024
In early December, the finals of the Yandex Cup international programming competition took place in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). The prize, which totalled a record 16 million roubles, was shared among the winners from Russia, Belarus, Japan, the USA, Portugal, and the United Kingdom. Dmitry Rempel, student of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, won in the Backend track.
‘You Should Study Mathematics, Combinatorics, and Catalan Numbers instead of Playing Computer Games’
In early November, the final of the MTS True Tech Champ—which brought together more than 12,500 schoolchildren, students, and young programmers—took place. Alexander Babin, student of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, was named the winner of the ‘Algorithmic Programming’ track.
HSE University’s Faculty of Computer Science Teams Win ICPC International Collegiate Programming Contest
On April 14–19, 2024, two finals of the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) took place in Luxor (Egypt). The teams from HSE University’s Faculty of Computer Science became world champions in the 47th ICPC final and received gold medals in the 46th final.
Faculty of Computer Science Students Took Top Three Places in Competitive Programming at Games of the Future
The Games of the Future in competitive programming were held in Kazan on February 28th–29th. 50 people from 27 countries took part in the competition. The Russian national team included seven students selected based on the results of the Russian championship organised by the Competitive Programming Federation. The team included three students from Applied Mathematics and Information Science at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science.
HSE University Teams Win Gold and Three Bronzes in ICPC Semifinals
In December, the Northern Eurasia Regional Contests (NERC)—the semifinal of the ICPC international programming contest—took place. This year’s competition featured around 300 teams comprising 900 participants from Russia and other CIS countries. The contest took place simultaneously in St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Astana, and Kutaisi. The majority of teams—a total of 152—took part in the competition at St Petersburg’s MTS Live Hall venue.
Students of HSE Faculty of Computer Science Win True Tech Champ by MTS
The final of the True Tech Champ Programming Olympiad from MTS took place at the end of October. Twelve students emerged as victors from the competition, including two second-year master’s students from the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, Ivan Safonov and Maxim Gorokhovsky.
HSE University Students and Graduates Among Winners of VK Cup ‘22/23
On February 5, the finals and award ceremony of the VK Cup ‘22/23 IT championship took place. The competition comprised two qualifying stages and one final stage. There were more than 5,000 applications for the qualifying stages, with a total of 80 participants making it to the finals.