‘Smart and Bright: Winners of Data Analysis National Olympiad Announced
The awards ceremony for the winners of the Data Analysis National Olympiad (DANO) has taken place at the HSE Cultural Centre. This is the second time the Olympiad has been held, and was organized by HSE University together with Tinkoff. About 7,000 participants from different regions of Russia and 13 other countries took part in the event. Those coming in the top 25 of the individual ratings will be able to study at HSE University for free.
The DANO gives participants the opportunity to test themselves as analysts before applying to university. To participate, you don’t need to have good knowledge of data analysis, just a basic knowledge of mathematics and logic. The olympiad includes three stages, during which the participants honed their logic skills, their ability to work with data, to draw informed conclusions and argue, as well as gaining experience in team projects and developing soft skills.
The final stage of the olympiad consisted of two rounds.
The first round was a problem-solving round, where the participants could test themselves as analysts and demonstrate their advanced data analysis skills.
The second round consisted of a project, organised in the format of a field school. The participants spent several days in the Ognikovo Park Hotel near Moscow, where they developed team projects based on real databases with the help of Tinkoff mentors, HSE students and university co-organisers of the olympiad.
The winners of the Olympiad were announced at a ceremony by Nikita Anisimov, HSE University Rector, and Stanislav Bliznyuk, Chairman of the Tinkoff Management Board.
HSE Rector thanked all the DANO organisers, as well as the teachers and parents of the participants, ‘who made it all possible’. He noted that participation in this olympiad is one of those ‘cool moments’ that a person remembers for a lifetime: ‘I hope that you’ll remember the Data Analysis National Olympiad forever.’
Nikita Anisimov also hoped that the participants would stay friends after the olympiad, because not only their ability to manipulate data, but also competing and winning brought them together. ‘You are the best because you are together. Stick together and you will succeed,’ he concluded.
Stanislav Bliznyuk said that DANO is a ‘new dimension’ in the olympiad movement. Classical competitions are more academic, theoretical, and less practice-oriented, while the DANO participants are halfway to understanding and improving business. ‘All the tasks that you have solved here are similar to the tasks that we solve in our company,’ he added.
In his opinion, the finalists of the olympiad share two qualities: they are smart and curious and this combination of qualities generates flexibility, creativity, and a desire to ask questions and find answers to them. ‘Making decisions based on numbers was originally part of the Tinkoff DNA. We will continue to invest in smart guys and support such programmes. I sincerely hope DANO is able to attract several million participants,’ says Stanislav Bliznyuk.
The top three participants of the task round from each class and the top three teams of the project tour were announced by Vladislav Pikinevich, chairman of the olympiad jury, team lead of analytics at Tinkoff, and Dmitry Pokrovsky, chairman of the methodological committee, associate professor at the St. Petersburg School of Economics and Management.
The prizes were awarded to the 2nd class certificate holders by co-chairman of the organizing committee, HSE University deputy vice-rector Danil Fedorovykh and vice-president for information technology at Tinkoff Vyacheslav Tsyganov.
Rector of the Adygea State University Daud Mamiy, and Innopolis University Rector Alexander Tormasov gave awards the winners of the 3rd class certificates
Daud Mamiy learnt about DANO in the summer of 2022. ‘I looked at the tasks and understood that there had been no such tasks at olympiads before, and suggested to my colleagues that we should make our university a platform for the competition. I am sure that the olympiad will continue to develop. Congratulations to those who came up with this idea and implemented this wonderful project,’ says Rector of Adygea State University.
Alexander Tormasov noted that at Innopolis University, a young Russian university that turned 10 years old last week, the topic of working with data is one of the key ones, with bachelor’s and master’s students focusing closely on it. In his opinion, data analysis will develop dynamically over the coming years and today's DANO participants will play a key role in this development.
DANO winners will get some extras when applying to universities, including additional points for the Unified State Exam at co-organizing universities (HSE University, ITMO, UrFU, Adygea State University). They can also pass a simplified competition for grants to study at Innopolis University, and get discounts on fee-paying tuition at HSE University. The participants with the best results, and included in the top 25 of the individual ratings are granted the right to study at several HSE degree programmes at the expense of the university.
The winners and certificate holders of the DANO final round will also be able to pass a simplified selection for ‘Tinkoff Start’ internships, and apply for Tinkoff scholarships when they become students.