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TechIE Day 2025 brought us the first edition of the CodeX competition, a fast-paced programming contest for bachelor’s and master’s students at IE School of Science & Technology. Hosted by Executive Vice Dean Dr. Rafif Srour, the three-round competition brought together top IE candidates, with the prize going to two of them: Ilia Artamonov and Oskar Kłoczko.

We caught up with the winning pair to find out how IE School of Science & Technology is helping students learn beyond the classroom.

What was the CodeX competition all about?

CodeX was conceived to mirror the structured, high-impact sprints found in the tech industry. It challenged students to take to the stage—literally—and test their technical skills in front of classmates, faculty and industry guests.

The IE Tower auditorium transformed into a coding arena with house music, stage lights and tight time constraints for contestants.

Round one began with a rapid-fire multiple-choice quiz on data structures, algorithms and computer science fundamentals. Round two split participants into teams, with the task of developing code for a Battleship-style logic game. Finally, round three saw a live head-to-head showdown between the top two teams, solving a challenge inspired by the World War II Enigma machine.

“For me, it was a no-brainer to join the competition,” said Ilia. “It really encourages people to learn what you actually need to build things—not just to understand how things work.”

Meeting the winners of the CodeX competition

Oskar’s a student of the Bachelor in Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence. Ilia’s studying the Bachelor in Data & Business Analytics. And while neither knew much of the other before competing, they instantly clicked as a team.

“Ilia was very direct and to the point,” says Oskar. “As soon as he saw the task, he was already thinking how to implement it. That helped a lot—we split the functions and supported each other when one of us got stuck.” Ilia similarly felt the dynamic worked to their strengths: “I’m more of the idea guy. I have this problem where I come up with really nice systems and algorithms in my head, but I struggle to convert them into actual code. Oskar was really good at understanding what I was trying to say and then actually putting it into practice.”

“I think it was a really useful experience—especially the teamwork aspect,” says Oskar.

“In a real career, you’ll have to work with all kinds of people and different deadlines. In class, you usually work with people you already know, so it’s not the same. But this competition really tested how you find common ground quickly and collaborate under stress. There’s no time for long discussions—you just have to act and solve the problem together.”

For Ilia, this was typical of IE School of Science & Technology’s approach to collaboration: “At IE, it’s natural to work together because everybody’s so social and really good at communicating. That means we’re all good team-players—especially Oskar, because he knows his stuff. So, in a way, I wouldn’t say working in teams was a challenge.”

Understanding the technical tools behind CodeX 2025

In the Battleship round, contestants were tasked with implementing the core gameplay mechanics of the classic game from scratch. This involved building functions that could randomly place ships of various sizes onto a 2D grid without overlaps or boundary violations. “You have to watch for edge cases,” says Oskar. “Like if you randomly pick a row and column, the boat might not fit in the direction you want.” This required conditional logic to check both orientation and position, ensuring each ship could legally occupy its assigned space. They also needed to implement collision detection to prevent ships from overlapping. And, of course, they created feedback systems to track hits, misses and when ships were completely sunk.

The challenge lay in writing the logic while designing an algorithm that accounted for all edge cases.

Ilia explains that abstract reasoning is required for this kind of logic: “You have a sort of system—like a ‘what if’ branching logic—for whatever you might encounter.” As such, students had to think architecturally, visualizing possible code paths and outcomes before writing their solutions. Even a seemingly simple decision, such as the order in which to check placement constraints, could impact the entire system.

In the final challenge, the pair shifted gears to tackle a simplified version of the Enigma machine’s logic—a famous World War II encryption system. The task required them to map each letter of an input string to a corresponding encoded letter, based on a given static key. For Oskar, the real difficulty lay in the pressure. “You’re on a stage, lights in your face, using a small laptop with someone you’ve never worked with,” he says. “All of that adds up. Even a simple task becomes very hard under those conditions.”

Despite the constraints, Oskar and Ilia created a working solution using basic iteration and mapping techniques: “We just had to iterate through the given message and replace each character with its corresponding mapped letter.”

Watch a full stream of the competition

The strengths of IE School of Science & Technology

IE School of Science & Technology mirrors the complexity and pressure of real-world tech environments. And the CodeX competition isn’t the only one of its kind. “I’ve competed in every Tech Venture Bootcamp,” says Ilia. “It’s a week-long event where you have to come up with a startup idea and do as much as you can. Some people reach MVP level, some go beyond that—like getting actual clients, or at least interviews. It definitely complements the stuff I’ve learnt in the classroom. I’d say the extracurricular events really push you—not just in terms of knowledge, but in terms of meta-skills.”

And Oskar attributes much of his success in CodeX to course content: “We’ve had really insightful classes. For example, in cloud computing, we learned about tools like Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, and even Linux. It was fascinating to see how all of these work behind the scenes. Most servers today run Linux and use this kind of software, so having that exposure was very valuable. Our professor for that class was very experienced in the field, which made a big difference. Sometimes in school, a professor might not be able to answer real-world questions because they don’t have the practical background. But in this case, the professor had that experience and could answer anything we asked. He even organized a trip to a data center, which was a really eye-opening experience.”

For both, IE School of Science & Technology offers something unique. “IE was my first choice,” says Oskar. “You meet people from everywhere. And the opportunities go way beyond the classroom.”

“I chose to study at IE because I was never the kind of guy who wants to sit at a desk and do science in the traditional way,” says Ilia. “Instead of sitting at home doing formulas and guessing if my results will make a difference, I’d prefer to start a small business that actually helps people. I saw IE as an opportunity to learn science the way I want to learn it.”

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