Andrey Lopatin (Russian: Андре́й Серге́евич Лопа́тин) is a Russian programmer, one of the main founders of VKontakte social network and Telegram messenger, two times world champion in competitive programming, 2009 Topcoder Open winner, coach of the SPBU competitive programming team since 2006.

Andrey Lopatin
Андрей Сергеевич Лопатин
Born1981 (age 42–43)
OccupationProgrammer
Known forVKontakte, Telegram, two golds at ICPC

Early years

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Andrey Lopatin was born in St Petersburg into a family of teachers. He studied at the famous Physics and Mathematics Lyceum No. 239, but the last year he finished at the school No. 238 in an experimental class where the kids were taught Latin, Ancient Greek, philosophy, oriental studies and ancient culture. In the 1990s he saw computers for the first time, he tried to code in Basic following the advice he read in a book. In the 8th grade he tried creating first programs in Assembler. He actively participated in computer science competitions, at one of which he met Nikolay Durov, Pavel Durov's elder brother.[1][2]

After school, Lopatin entered SPBU where he got interested in algorithms. As a student, together with his friends Nikolay Durov and Oleg Eterevsky, Lopatin hacked into the network of ICPC organizers and sent messages to all participants, which led to disqualification of the team.[3] In 2000 and 2001, together with Nikolai Durov, Lopatin won the ICPC.[2][4] They were coached by Natalya Voyakovskaya, Senior Lecturer at the SPBU Faculty of Information Technology and Programming.[5]

In 2009, Lopatin won the Topcoder Open.[6][7]

Career

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Around 2008, in the early stages of the development of VKontakte, Nikolai and Pavel Durov invited Lopatin to join the team, he worked with Nikolai on code development and system optimisation.[3] As the company grew bigger, he took the post of vice technical director.[8]

Lopatin began working on the Telegram protocol in 2012[5] and became head of the company's Russian legal entity, but was fired by Pavel Durov in October 2014.[1]

In 2015, he headed development team at VeeRoute.[9][10][11][5][12]

Teaching and coaching

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Lopatin is hailed as one of the world's most gifted programmers.[9] In 2006, he went to work at SPBU Mathematics and Mechanics faculty.[13] After Voyakovskaya retired, Lopatin took over as coach of the SPBU competitive programming team[5] and lead it to XI place at ICPC in 2008. In 2014 and 2016, his team won the championship.[14][3][15][9]

In 2022, the team led by Lopatin took third place at the ICPC.[16]

Private life

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Lopatin is married, the couple has two kids.[17][13]

References

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  1. ^ a b "How Telegram Became the Anti-Facebook". Wired. 2022-02-08. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  2. ^ a b "Андрей Лопатин — о российских программистах, выигравших чемпионат мира" [Andrey Lopatin on the Russian programmers who won the world championship] (in Russian). Sekret Firmi. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  3. ^ a b c Filovon, D., Sedakov, P. (2015-03-13). "Код победителей: как программисты из России получили мировое признание" [The winning code: how programmers from Russia gained global recognition]. Forbes (in Russian). Retrieved 2023-03-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ "Программирование — это спорт Не верите? Сейчас докажем" [Programming is a sport. Don't you believe it? Let us prove it] (in Russian). Meduza. 2020-04-20. Retrieved 2023-03-03.
  5. ^ a b c d "Самые умные: как сложилась карьера победителей мировых IT-чемпионатов" [The smartest: how the winners of the world IT championships fared in their careers] (in Russian). RBC. 2017-02-02. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  6. ^ "Андрей Лопатин победил в открытом личном чемпионате мира по программированию Top Coder Open — 2009" [Andrei Lopatin wins the 2009 TopCoder Open] (in Russian). SPBU. 2009-09-02. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  7. ^ "Андрей Лопатин одержал победу на чемпионате мира по программированию TopCoder Open — 2009" [Andrei Lopatin wins 2009 Individual World Programming Championship Top Coder Open] (in Russian). Delovoy Peterburg. 2009-06-12. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  8. ^ Shibaeva, K. (2015-08-04). "Почему российские программисты отказывают Google и Microsoft" [Why Russian programmers refuse offers from Google and Microsoft] (in Russian). Sobaka. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  9. ^ a b c "Yet another win of the team trained by Andrey Lopatin: ACM-ICPC 2016". Medium. 2016-05-19. Retrieved 2022-03-02.
  10. ^ "Почему гикам стоит остаться работать в России?" [Why should nerds stay working in Russia?] (in Russian). Sobaka. 2016-11-08. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  11. ^ "Прибыльная логистика" [Profitable logistics] (in Russian). Invest Forsight. 2019-01-24. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  12. ^ "Петербургская IT-компания получила деньги на открытие Америки" [Petersburg IT company gets money to discover America] (in Russian). RBC. 2017-04-20. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  13. ^ a b Melnikov, S. (2014-06-30). "Андрей Лопатин, тренер сборной СпбГУ по программированию" [Andrey Lopatin, coach of the SPSU competitive programming team] (in Russian). Kommersant. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  14. ^ "Как студенты СПбГУ готовились к чемпионату мира по программированию и чем занимаются в свободное время" [How SPbU students prepared for the World Cup and what they do in their spare time] (in Russian). Paper. 2016-05-26. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  15. ^ Dolgosheva, A. (2019-12-05). "Наступая на пятки друг другу. Российские команды готовятся к чемпионату мира по программированию" [Stepping on each other's toes. Russian teams prepare for the World Programming Championships] (in Russian). Vedomosti SPb. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  16. ^ "Студенты СПбГУ стали бронзовыми медалистами международной олимпиады ICPC" [SPbU students become bronze medallists in ICPC international competition] (in Russian). 78. 2022-11-11. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  17. ^ ""Без развития родителей не будет и развития ребёнка"" ["Without parental development, there will be no child development"] (in Russian). Mel FM. 12 January 2017. Retrieved 2023-03-02.