This week, three young Nigerian students are competing on a global stage in Rome, Italy, at the International STEM Olympiad 2026, and behind their journey is a story of regional pride, mathematical brilliance, and one tech entrepreneur’s decision to bet big on Nigeria’s youth.
Meet the Olympiad Team
Egejurum Onyedikachi
Egejurum Onyedikachi is a pupil of Diamond Special College in Owerri, Imo State, won the Primary Category of the South East Maths Olympiad after edging out over 11,500 other participants. In the grand finale, he scored 13 out of 15 to claim first place, narrowly beating a rival from Anambra State by a single point.
Speaking after his win, Onyedikachi credited his success to teachers who drilled him late into the evenings and to a love for mathematics that took root back in his primary years. His victory earned him a ₦2 million prize.
Onwubiko Chimdiebube
Onwubiko Chimdiebube represented Enugu State and Evergreen Schools, sweeping the Junior Category with a perfect score in the final round, a standout performance in a category where Evergreen Schools students took first, second, and third place under the mentorship of their mathematics teacher, Chisom Unachukwu.
Chimdiebube walked away with a ₦3 million prize, while his teacher received ₦1 million in recognition.
Don-Anele Munachimso Marvelous
Don-Anele Munachimso is also a student of Diamond Special College, Owerri, and topped the Senior Category, defeating thousands of contestants across five south-eastern states. His win came with a ₦5 million cash prize, a ₦1 million award for his teacher, and a $100,000 scholarship to study in Canada, a life-changing reward for a teenager who out-thought an entire region’s worth of competitors.
All three qualified through the South East Maths Olympiad, the inaugural regional competition held earlier this year that drew more than 11,500 students from Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. Their performances in that grand finale earned them the right to represent Nigeria at the International STEM Olympiad, held in Rome from July 2 to 8, where they’re up against roughly 150 students from around the world across categories in Math, Science, Technology & Engineering, and a hands-on Maker Challenge.
The Man Behind the Mission: Alex Onyia
None of this would have happened without Alex Onyia, the founder and CEO of Educare, a Nigerian edtech company whose school-management software is now used by more than 1,400 schools across Nigeria, Tanzania, the UK, and the US.
Alex Onyia studied Agricultural and Bio-Resources Engineering at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, not computer science, but grew up with early access to a home computer thanks to his mother’s job at NITEL, and taught himself to code and build websites while still an undergraduate.
He later worked in Facebook’s Platform Partnerships team for the Middle East and Africa before returning fully to education technology. Alex Onyia is also the driving force behind the Intervention for South East Education (ISEE), an initiative that funds scholarships, school renovations, teacher training, and now, the South East Maths Olympiad itself.
Beyond funding the competition’s prize money, Onyia has pushed for physical upgrades to schools across the five south-eastern states, including new classrooms and tech-equipped labs, all under a “Get Intellectually Occupied” philosophy aimed at giving young people something constructive to focus on. He’s also become a familiar name in Nigerian education advocacy more broadly, notably leading the public pressure campaign that forced a review of the 2025 UTME results after hundreds of thousands of students were wrongly scored due to a technical glitch.
It was Onyia himself who first floated the idea of sending the region’s winners to compete internationally, publicly challenging them to test their skills against students from China, Korea, Singapore, Finland, Germany, and the United States. He followed through by personally announcing he would sponsor three students and two teachers for the Rome trip, covering flights, hotels, tours, and registration, a package reported to cost roughly £32,200.
He has been candid that he’s relying on donations from well-off supporters in the region to help fund the logistics, treating the trip as a community investment rather than a solo expense.
What Is The International STEM Olympiad 2026
The International STEM Olympiad is a global competition, open to students from grades 1 to 12, that tests promising young minds across four categories: Mathematics, Science, Technology & Engineering, and a Maker Challenge that rewards applied, hands-on problem-solving rather than pure theory.
Students qualify through online rounds before the top performers are invited to the in-person Grand Final. This year’s Grand Final is being held in Rome from July 2 to 8, drawing roughly 150 student finalists.
The competition began in Germany in 2012, and organizers say it has since grown to reach students across some 153 countries and regions worldwide, spanning North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, making it one of the broadest STEM competitions a young Nigerian student could hope to qualify for.
Why Is it Important to Recognize This Feat?
For a region that has weathered disruptions to schooling and persistent doubts about the state of Nigerian education, this trip is more than a school trip.
These three boys, all products of relatively under-the-radar schools in Owerri and Enugu, are now standing shoulder to shoulder with students from some of the world’s strongest STEM education systems. Whatever medals come home from Rome, the bigger win may already be behind them, a strong proof that talent nurtured properly in Nigeria, can compete anywhere in the world.
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