Romania is making history in one of the most competitive fields of the future - algorithmic programming. TheOnesWhoKnock team, formed by Andrei Boacă, Alexandru Gheorghiș and Robert Andrei Popa, students of the Faculty of Computer Science at the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iași, has won the gold medal at the ICPC European Championship 2026, the most prestigious international algorithmic competition dedicated to students. The performance marks a national premiere, being the first gold medal obtained by a Romanian university at this European stage of the competition.
In recognition of their exceptional performance and their potential to contribute to the development of society through technology and innovation, Andrei Boacă, Alexandru Gheorghiș and Robert Andrei Popa were included in the national campaign "100 Youngsters for Romania's Development", run by the Dan Voiculescu Foundation for the Development of Romania. Through this initiative, the Foundation promotes the elites of the young generation who demonstrate that Romania can compete at the highest global level in strategic areas - education, research, technology and innovation.
The European stage of ICPC took place from February 6-8, 2026, in Warsaw, bringing together some of the world's strongest technical universities. 53 top universities participated, and no less than 459 teams competed in the preliminary stages, placing the Romanians' result in a rarely reached zone of academic excellence. The ICPC format is recognized for its extreme difficulty: teams have to solve complex algorithmic problems, have strict time and memory limits and work on a single computer for the whole team, in an intellectual marathon against the clock. The students from Iași solved five problems, the same number as the first-placed team, the difference being made by just a few minutes of penalties in a competition that lasted 5 hours.
The three students are in their second year and have been accumulating results since high school, constantly participating in international competitions and training camps. The team has also previously distinguished itself by winning medals at ICPC regional stages, results that have strengthened their path to European performance. The ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest) is considered the longest and most prestigious university programming contest in the world, bringing together tens of thousands of students from thousands of universities every year.
After the European gold, the UAIC team qualified for the ICPC World Finals, 50th edition, which will take place on November 15-20, 2026, in Dubai, where it will represent Romania in the confrontation with the most powerful universities in the world.
The victory of TheOnesWhoKnock team is a university success and an indicator of Romania's ability to train specialists capable of performing in a global ecosystem dominated by algorithms, artificial intelligence and advanced digital solutions. The outcome of the students from Iași shows that investing in high performance education produces not just graduates, but leaders of the future digital economy in a context where economic competitiveness increasingly depends on excellence in science and technology.
