- 06.05–21.06.2024Application period
- 01.07–09.08.2024Interviews
- Autumn 2024Prize ceremony
Areas
Yandex awards this prize for outstanding work in the scientific areas, where the company has expertise. Yandex researchers are cutting-edge innovators who work on problems that still don’t have a solution.
The algorithms, methods, and technologies they create are used in many Yandex products, including Yandex Search, the voice assistant Alice, and self-driving vehicles.
- Speech recognition and speech synthesis
Research that helps voice assistants understand speech and respond to users. - Computer vision
Research that helps self-driving vehicles navigate in space and enables computer systems to extract information from images. - Information retrieval
Methods for handling huge amounts of data and identifying patterns in it. - Natural language processing and machine translation
Research that enables language models to generate texts and online translators to understand hundreds of different languages. - Generative models
Neural networks algorithms that create text, video, audio, or images at the user’s request.
Nominations
- First publication
- Researchers
- Young academic supervisors
- Academic supervisors
- ML Educators
First publication
Candidate requirements
Students and postgraduates studying at a university or research institute in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan.
First publication or talk at A* and A conference or in Q1 journal in 2023–2024.
Less than 3 publications at conferences and in journals of all time.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 500,000 rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training .i The grant can be used in conjunction with the project team under the guidance of the laureate.
Researchers
Candidate requirements
Studying or working at a university or research institute in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan.
Two and more publications or talks at A* or A conferences or in Q1 journals, and at least one thesis in 2023–2024.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 500,000 rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training .i The grant can be used in conjunction with the project team under the guidance of the laureate.
Young academic supervisors
Candidate requirements
Up to five students with publications at A* and A conferences or in Q1 journals.
Students’ first publication date under scientific supervision not earlier than 2020.
Working at a university or research institute in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 1 million rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training .i The grant can be used in conjunction with the project team under the guidance of the laureate.
Academic supervisors
Candidate requirements
More than five students with publications at A* and A conferences or in Q1 journals.
Working with students on theses or dissertations at a university or research institute in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan.
Academic degree.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 1 million rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training .i The grant can be used in conjunction with the project team under the guidance of the laureate.
ML Educators
Candidate requirements
Authors of open source courses in the field of ML who are holding classes at universities or research institutes in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan.
Prize
- A cash prize amounting to 1 million rubles (excluding personal income tax) paid once.
- 500,000 rubles that can be spent on any Yandex Cloud services for computing, storing and publishing datasets, and model training .i The grant can be used in conjunction with the project team under the guidance of the laureate.
Prize winners
- Ivan ButakovMIPT, SkoltechInformation theory, learning theory, generative models, unsupervised learning
- Artem LykovSkoltechCognitive robotics, generative models, LLM
- Ilya ZismanAIRI, Skoltech, dunnolabReinforcement learning, meta-RL, open-ended learning
Prize Panel
- Pavel BraslavskiAssistant Professor at Nazarbayev University, Associate Professor at HSE University
Evgeny BurnaevHead of Skoltech AI Center, Head of AIRI Research Group
Alexey GusakovCTO of Yandex Search
Alexander KrainovDirector of AI Technologies development, Yandex- Sergey NikolenkoAssociate Professor at PDMI RAS, SPbU
Stanislav SmirnovProfessor at the University of Geneva, St. Petersburg State University, and Skoltech
Prize Jury
FAQ
- Are the Yandex ML Prize and the Ilya Segalovich Award the same thing?
Yandex ML Prize is the new title of the Ilya Segalovich Award. Yandex ML Prize covers 11 countries. It’s intended for the researchers, academic supervisors, and educators advancing the ML discipline.
- I’m the Yandex ML Prize winner in the period of 2019–2023. Can I apply in 2024?
Yes, you can re-apply for the prize.
- Can I apply in multiple categories?
No, you can only apply for one nomination except you nominate other candidates for the prize.
- I’m studying at a foreign university. Do I qualify for the prize?
Yes, so long as your university or research institute is located in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan.
- I’m a graduate student in my last year. Do I qualify for the prize?
Yes, anyone earning a specialty, bachelor’s, master’s, or postgraduate degree at a university or research institute in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan can apply.
- I’m studying at a private university. Could I win a prize?
Yes, so long as you’re doing research in machine learning: computer vision, information retrieval, natural language processing and machine translation, speech recognition and synthesis, or generative models.
- I’m not on a scholarship. Do I qualify for the prize?
Yes. You can apply.
- My scientific paper was declined for publication. Can I apply for the prize?
No. You can only apply if your work has been published or accepted for publication. .
- My scientific achievements don’t yet meet the requirements for the prize. Can I still participate?
We will not be able to accept your application if it does not meet the requirements. But you can nominate a supervisor or professor working in the field of ML.
- My supervisor works with universities and research institutes in other countries. Can I nominate them?
Yes. Working with foreign universities and research institutes is not an obstacle for receiving the prize.
- How do I nominate someone for ML Educator nomination?
The application is to be submitted by a professor or a group of students who have completed the course.