Alkindi: Making cryptography cool!
Winning team Tinosaurz © 2026 EPFL/Max Canarelli - CC-BY-SA 4.0
Tinosaurz, the team from the primary and secondary school Blonay-Saint-Légier has won this year’s Alkindi-Suisse, a cryptography competition open to Swiss high-school students.
Cryptography is the science of making and breaking codes, tapping into the brain’s natural love for patterns and turning abstract logic into a rewarding exercise. It’s also 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), supported by the Institute of Mathematics in the School of Basic Sciences (SB).
The competition, open to 9th, 10th and 11th graders, allows students to discover various aspects of crypto-analysis by solving different preliminary interactive problems. In 2025/26 more than 2000 secondary students from across French-speaking Switzerland took part.
For this year’s 8th edition, 17 teams made up of 54 students made it to the final of the 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, ‘Tinosaurz’ Blonay–Saint-Légier Primary and Secondary School, comprised of Louise Borloz, Giancomo Rando, Marshall Halonen and Fenne Suichies, solved four exercises in the allocated time of 2 hours.
For the supervising teachers, the structure of the Alkindi-Suisse competition is interesting in itself, with students progressing through multiple qualification rounds.
“I think it’s interesting for them to discover cryptography, to get an idea of what it really is, because it doesn’t match what we teach and the logical aspect does throw them off a bit. The progression through the rounds is great, students are required to stay consistent and motivated. There’s also a very real goal in coming to EPFL for the final. The Alkindi-Suisse competition creates a sense of team spirit among participants and allows us to break up regular lessons and do something a bit different,” said Jean-Baptiste Deschamps, a Maths/Physics teacher from the secondary school Nyon-Marens.
Alkindi finalists 2026
First place: ‘Tinosaurz’ (Louise Borloz, Giancomo Rando, Marshall Halonen and Fenne Suichies) Etablissement primaire et secondaire Blonay-Saint-Légier
Second place: ‘Les Mathémagiciennes’ (Tina Tatar, Elsa Martin, Lisa Dupraz, Adriana Loureiro) Collège du Foron, Thônex
Third place: ‘M&m's’ (Salomé Von Dach, Héloïse Robert) Etablissement secondaire Pully
