Agentic AI Needs Problem Solvers
Earlier this month I was at the 2025 ICPC World Finals Baku. I sat down with Coach Fegla, who has led teams to the ICPC World Finals in twenty different years. He belongs to a very short and prestigious list. The conversation touched on AI, competitive programing, and how to teach people (how to solve hard problems).
Agentic AI is improving fast and one day it might be able to win a gold medal at the ICPC world final. But not yet because AI works well when it can reason from patterns it has seen before. Competitive programming is exactly hard at that. The hardest ICPC problems have clear specs and tight constraints, there is no ambiguity there. But the edge cases and tradeoffs under time and memory pressure are novel and unique. The problem setters are clever meat brains! It is perhaps one of the purest form of gym for the mind.
We also talked about how to learn in a world full of AI. A pure “do it yourself” path is slow. A pure “rely on AI” path is shallow. The right model is hybrid. Rotate across three kinds of problems:
- Easy ones for clean code and speed.
- Medium ones for creativity and modeling.
- Hard ones that expose missing knowledge so you know what to study next.
Use AI as a coach and a second pair of eyes. Do not let it replace your own thinking.
For parents who want their kids to become world class problem solvers, start with logic early. Blocks and visual tools are fine. If a child shows sustained interest in math and logic, move to C/C++ around 10 or 11 years old. Foundations first. Tools second.
For business leaders, three practical moves:
- Hire for problem solving. Tools can be learned quickly by someone who can think precisely.
- Screen with time boxed problem work that surfaces modeling skills, edge case thinking, and clarity under pressure.
- Pair teams with AI for scaffolding, reviews, and search, while keeping ownership of core decisions and system design with humans.
There is a longer story behind these points. The full interview is now on YouTube.