In the tournament, 200 participants who had successfully passed the selection stage solved tasks in speed duels. Unlike in conventional contests, where participants have several hours to solve a set of problems, each round in the finals of the University Battle lasts only several minutes – during this time, contestants have to understand a problem, come up with a solution, and implement it faster than their opponents.
“The hardest part was not beating one opponent – but making it through the whole tournament. Each contestant had their strengths, so I had to adjust and align my strategy for each round. This is one of a few high-level competitions in this format. We had three to five minutes for each pair of tasks and absolutely no extra time for figuring out the conditions. Speed reading was a big help here: for some tasks, I figured out the solution before my opponent even started coding,” says Ildar Gainullin.
University Battle 2026. Photo by Yandex
According to the student, he owes the win to a task in which contestants had to build an algorithm that would produce a text "drawing" of a Christmas tree. Completing it secured a top spot on the leaderboard for Ildar well before the final rounds.
For Ildar, this is not the first win at a prestigious contest: he won the programming team contest for school students in 2018, as well as brought home silver from the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) in 2019 and gold from the ICPC Northern Eurasia Finals in 2025.
Currently, Ildar studies computer technologies at ITMO’s Information Technologies and Programming Faculty – the alma mater of several generations of competitive programming champions, including ICPC winners.
“We’ve been working with Ildar since he was in high school, when we noticed him at an event in Kazan back in 2015. He actively participated in ITMO’s educational events and summer schools and later became one of the strongest computer science students. We’re proud to watch him continue this journey, now as an ITMO student, and excel at major competitions,” notes Andrey Stankevich, the dean of ITMO’s Information Technologies and Programming Faculty.
University Battle 2026. Photo by Yandex
Young Con is an annual Yandex festival for students and young researchers. The event features lectures, career activities, meetups with experts, and competitions, with one of the highlights being the super final of University Battle.
