AI & Digital Bridge 2026: why we need school AI olympiads

Had a chance to be a speaker at AI & Digital Bridge in Astana this year at a panel session together with Arman, Danabek Kaliazhdarov, Suleimenov, Radoslav Neychev, Simon Meister and Temirlan Saltykhanov, where we discussed school AI olympiads and why we need them.

It’s not only about AI olympiads. I guess it’s important to make kids learn some scientific curiosity and intuition. That’s why it’s quite important to give them an option to switch from IOI/ICPC engineering problems towards more research-style competitions. IOAI is a good start for kids that can form their interest in research competitions, which then can lead to a really significant output. Remember, AlexNet was a result of the ImageNet competition in 2012.

I’m very proud to represent the DSML.KZ community, who organised the first republican AI Olympiad in 2025 and significantly contributed to IOAI 2026. The community has amazing people of all sorts and ages: from our peers who are coaches for the new generation to the DSML Young members who make us infinitely proud with their medals and wins at their first research competitions and first publications.

The only question I’m still trying to answer is what’s next for us, and for them especially? Luckily, the days when such talented kids were dreaming of being just SWEs at big tech companies are gone for good. These kids should dream much bigger than that. But will we be able to offer them some place to make fundamental breakthrough research here in Kazakhstan? I hope that one day we will.