Alkindi: Kids' cracking the code!
Math et Matrix © 2025 EPFL / Léo Noa Riccio - CC-BY-SA 4.0
‘Math and Matrix’ a student team from Neuchatel’s Eorén – Terreaux School has won this year’s Alkindi-Switzerland, which introduces cryptography to Swiss secondary students.
Cryptography is the art of writing or solving codes and it’s increasingly important in today’s digital world for secure communication. The Alkindi competition, which originated in France, is named after the ninth-century philosopher Al-Kindi, who is today considered to be one of the founders of cryptography – the study of codes.
In Switzerland, Alkindi is organized by EPFL’s School of Computer and Communication Sciences ‐ EPFL (IC), and the Science Outreach Department (SPS), in collaboration with the Animath and France-ioi associations. For this 2025 edition more than 1800 secondary students from across French-speaking Switzerland took part, coming from the cantons of Neuchâtel, Vaud, Jura, Valais, and Geneva.
Through the competition, 9th, 10th and 11th graders discover various aspects of crypto-analysis by solving different preliminary interactive problems.
In 2025, 16 teams made up of 56 students made it to the finals competition, held this week at EPFL. During the challenges, each student team had to work together to decrypt alphabetic and numeric messages within two hours.
The winning team, ‘Math and Matrix’, comprised of Inés Barbu Sesma, Théo Vaucher, Alice Zappella et Aloïs Prongué from Neuchâtel, solved an impressive five exercises in the allocated time of 2 hours.
Supervising teachers find that the competition helps to motivate students to participate in maths and allows them to have a lot of fun.
“Sometimes what we do at school is hard to make sense of, kids often ask ‘what's the point of what we're doing here?’ To do something like this, it makes them feel valued, showing that they are capable of doing something that will enable them to go further in a field. They can make sense of it,” explained Chloé Andrey, an accompanying teacher from Blonay-St -Légier, a school with four teams in the finals – MeLouPaFe, RNDRTPNA, Master Shifu and les sacs a patates!
She also feels it’s a project that encourages girls to participate in maths, a subject that for the most part attracts more boys. ‘Maths is maths,’ she says and all her students are very motivated to take on the challenge. For teachers who have not participated before Andrey highly recommends the experience.
“I think it's really great that there's a final outside of school, it really tells the students ‘bravo, you've made it this far’ and it shows them they were right to invest their time. Coming to EPFL is a gift for them and allows them to have a taste of what might be to come. It’s great and they love it!”
