Investment to the Future: the final of the National Technology Olympics on Artificial Intelligence took place in Moscow

The winners and runners-up of the National Technology Olympics (NTO) in the field of Artificial Intelligence have been determined. This competition has been held since 2019 in cooperation with the Academy of Artificial Intelligence for Schoolchildren run by Sberbank’s Investment to the Future Charitable Foundation. The project is supported by the Sber AI team. Over five years, more than 27,000 children participated in the competition.

This season, it was joined by more than 6,300 people from 84 regions of Russia, as well as from Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Uzbekistan. For the second year running, the NTO Artificial Intelligence competition scores the most registrations among 41 disciplines of the Olympics. 104 schoolchildren from 28 regions of Russia entered the finals. The top three constituent entities of the Russian Federation in terms of the number of finalists are Moscow (26), Saint Petersburg (16), and Novosibirsk Region (13).

The final stage of the competition lasted five days. This year, the participants were looking for new radiopharmaceuticals – drugs that use radioactivity to diagnose and treat cancer. For the drug to succeed, it must deliver a medical radionuclide to the cancerous tumor, and the finalists had to find the molecules that could do it most effectively. Experimental search for such molecules is a labor-intensive and expensive procedure that requires involvement of scientists from multiple fields. Artificial intelligence methods have significantly accelerated this process: the generative models that schoolchildren worked with were able to suggest new molecules, and machine learning models predicted their properties, and evaluated the prospects of their medicinal use.

The five winning teams shared a prize fund of 4 million roubles. The children received cash prizes ranging from 250,000 to 650,000 roubles, and invitations to take up Machine Learning internships at Sber and partner companies.

18 runners-up of the individual all-around event were awarded with SberBoom Mini smart speakers and powerbanks, with 8 winners receiving SberBoom speakers in addition to cash prizes. In addition, all of them will be enrolled in special courses at the best universities of the country without entrance exams, or receive 100 points for the Unified State Exam in their principal subjects. The top scorers in special nominations - ML Lady, It’s Not About Age, The Best Subject Tour Solution, and This Is Family - were given TV media centers equipped with SberBox Top smart cameras.

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Herman Gref Sber CEO, Chairman of the Executive Board

"At these Olympics, we always ask children to accomplish tasks that are diverse and very difficult. And every time the way they tackle those tasks exceeds our expectations. There are no losers here: everyone who takes an interest in developing and learning something new always wins. Dear children, keep dreaming and turning your dreams into reality, set ambitious goals and objectives, and strive to achieve them. It is important that your development does not stop, not even for one moment. The future is being born right now, and you are the ones making it!”

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Nikita Anisimov Rector of the National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Deputy Co-Chair of the NTO Organizing Committee

“More and more winners and runners-up of the National Technology Olympics, particularly, of the Artificial Intelligence competition, enter the Higher School of Economics. We see that they have great potential and experience that is difficult to acquire anywhere other than in an engineering team competition with tasks provided by the leading technology companies of Russia. The opportunity to take up internships after the NTO finals gives the winners even more experience, making them feel needed even at school and during the first years at the university”.

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Kirill Khvil Deputy General Director of the Russian Knowledge Society

“In Russia, special attention is paid to identifying schoolchildren who are interested in programming and working with artificial intelligence. And the National Technology Olympics is one of the platforms where interest in this area is nurtured since childhood. For previous winners, the Olympics became a real springboard, and opened many development opportunities. The Russian Knowledge Society, as the main educational organization of the country, is also ready to support the participants by providing genuine informative content, and giving them an opportunity to become lecturers and share their unique knowledge and experience with a large audience".

The most winners and runners-up in the 2023-2024 season are from Saint Petersburg and Moscow Region, with equal number of winners from Tatarstan, Novosibirsk Region, Bashkortostan, Irkutsk Region, Moscow, and Primorsky Krai.

While congratulating the winners and giving a warm welcome to all other participants of the Olympics, Olga Petrova, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of Russia, noted that the Artificial Intelligence competition became the most popular, and attracted the most teams to the National Technology Olympics:
"Over 6,300 people participated in it this year. And ever since the first competition in 2019, the total number of participants has exceeded 27,000. Every year, this discipline attracts more and more participants, generating lively interest among children. This year, the finalists had a chance to immerse themselves in chemistry-relevant artificial intelligence tasks. Their solutions will significantly accelerate research, and enable discovery of new compounds. In just a few months, today’s finalists will be able to continue studies in their favorite fields at universities. And this is great, because you are the future of scientific and technological breakthroughs in our country!”

Eight winners of the individual all-round event

Ivan Terentyev (Arkhangelsk), Aleksandr Smirnov (Pushkin), Igor Kartashov (Saint Petersburg), Andrey Katasonov (Saint Petersburg), Georgy Kvaratskhelia (Innopolis), Yuri Sokolov (Zhukovsky, Moscow Region), Kirill Tsimbalyuk (Ivanteyevka, Moscow Region), Maksim Mashtaler (Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region).

18 runners-up of the individual all-around event

Valery Uryadov (Novosibirsk), Artyom Guyvan (Veliky Novgorod), Asgat Akmayev (Kazan), Mikhail Shperling (Saint Petersburg), Herman Kek (Novosibirsk), Roman Pakhomov (Saint Petersburg), Aleksandr Krylov (Kaluga), Aleksandr Torovin (Salavat, Republic of Bashkortostan), Timur Garifullin (Ufa), Egor Daurtsev (Irkutsk), Danil Karpov (Vladivostok), Valery Tokarev (Vladivostok), Egor Yurov (Moscow), Yury Lukashov (Rostov-on-Don), Demyan Bubnov (Irkutsk), Vadim Vetrov (Konyovka village, Oryol Region), Ilya Guryev (Nizhny Novgorod), Evgeniya Petukhova (Moscow).

Winners of the team all-round event

  • 1st place: Ivan Terentyev (Arkhangelsk), Andrey Katasonov (Saint Petersburg)
  • 2nd place: Igor Kartashov (Saint Petersburg), Aleksandr Smirnov (Pushkin)
  • 3rd place: Kirill Tsimbalyuk (Ivanteyevka, Moscow Region), Yuri Sokolov (Zhukovsky, Moscow Region)
  • 4th place: Asgat Akmayev (Kazan), Georgy Kvaratskhelia (Innopolis)
  • 5th place: Maksim Mashtaler (Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region), Mikhail Shperling (Saint Petersburg)

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