The N-iX Data Community gathered for Data Games 2026, the fourth edition of our annual competition. This year’s theme, Data Oktoberfest, brought together around 20 participants for challenges spanning SQL, prompting, and system architecture, with quizzes and prizes for viewers too.
Held once a year, Data Games gives colleagues a chance to test their knowledge, work through challenges together, and connect beyond their everyday projects.
Four rounds, with AI-related tasks in every one
Four rounds kept everyone busy: Kahoot, Blitz SQL, Guess the Prompt, and a team architecture challenge with live presentations. AI-related tasks featured in every round, putting participants’ technical skills, quick thinking, and teamwork to the test.
Viewers joined quizzes, won gifts, and helped shape the final scores by voting for their favorite architecture presentations.
An active role for the audience
Viewers had their own activities and opportunities to win gifts throughout the games, taking part in Kahoot quizzes and other activities. During the Architecture Round, viewers also voted in the chat for their favorite team presentations. These Audience Choice votes counted toward the teams’ final scores, giving the audience a direct role in the competition.
Meet the Data Games 2026 winners
This year’s winners earned their places through a combination of technical knowledge, focus, and quick decision-making. Congratulations to all our finalists!
Junior Category
Strong focus, sharp logic, and speed stood out from the opening round.
- 🥇 1st place: Zenon Savchenko
- 🥈 2nd place: Mariana Haiovska
- 🥉 3rd place: Vladyslav Rybchynskyi
Middle Category
A closely contested competition highlighted tactical thinking and solid technical preparation.
- 🥇 1st place: Maksym Batiuk
- 🥈 2nd place: Artur Polianskyi
Senior+ Category
The Senior+ winners demonstrated architectural thinking, precision, and the ability to stay focused under time pressure.
- 🥇 1st place: Eduard Kovalenko
- 🥈 2nd place: Orest Shuplat
- 🥉 3rd place: Ostap Tuz
Thank you to everyone who took on the challenges and kept the competition lively throughout all four rounds.
The people behind the games
Data Games 2026 was a shared effort, with our Software Development Office, Event Management team, and many colleagues contributing their time and ideas to bring the event to life.
An extra special thank you goes to our Data Community leads, Oleksandr Chakalov and Daria Goncharenko, who were the driving force behind the scenes. They made the largest contribution to organizing the event, supported by everyone who helped prepare and run the competition.
Creating a warm, engaging community event in challenging times takes care and commitment. We’re grateful to the whole organizing team for making space for colleagues to learn, compete, and spend time together.
Four editions in, Data Games has become an annual tradition for the N-iX Data Community. This year’s Data Oktoberfest added another shared experience: new challenges to work through, ideas to exchange, and people to celebrate.
About N-iX
N-iX is a global software development service company that helps businesses across the globe expand their engineering capabilities and develop successful software products. With more than 2,400 professionals and over two decades of experience, N-iX offers expert solutions in software engineering, cloud, data analytics, embedded software, IoT, machine learning, and other tech domains, covering a wide variety of sectors, including finance, manufacturing, telecom, supply chain, and retail, to name a few.
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