For Kon Lual and Ian Mwadiloh, winning the 2025 Young Scientists Kenya National Exhibition was the beginning of the story rather than the end of it.
YSK exists on a simple bet, that a wealth of untapped talent already sits inside Kenyan youth, and that giving students a platform to compete with practical solutions to problems in their own communities is enough to turn STEM from a subject into a way in.
Kon is set to join Strathmore University this September. Ian is already there, a first-year student in electrical and electronics engineering. Afronomy Chain, the blockchain system they built to trace public funds, has grown since the win too, moving from a tool focused mainly on preventing fraud into one with a full public layer, called Netizen, built after judges pushed them to give citizens a way to engage with the data directly rather than just trust it.
Advice for the Next Cohort
Both students point to the same lesson from different angles. Kon spent 2023 competing and losing before returning in 2025 to win. “Go for it as early as you can,” he said, “so that you can fail long enough to succeed.” Ian frames the same idea as a discipline rather than a mindset: treat every setback as a chance to show the work to more people, gather feedback, and rebuild before the next attempt.
Dr. Victor Mwongera, YSK’s National Director, has consistently described the program’s purpose in similar terms at past exhibitions. “Technology is now integral to our daily lives,” describing the goal as building students into thinkers and problem solvers capable of driving change well beyond the exhibition floor.
A Model Already in Motion
The two YSK 2025 winners, went on a trip to Dublin, made possible through a Nine-year partnership between YSK and the Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in Ireland.
The partnership connected them directly to people further along the same path, including entrepreneurs like Patrick Collison, who won Ireland’s own exhibition two decades before founding Stripe.
Access to people who had already done what they were trying to do seems to have moved the needle most for Kon and Ian, alongside the funding and support that got them there in the first place.
It is also the case Kon makes to any young person still deciding whether STEM is worth the years it demands. “Even us, African students, have a potential that is untapped,” he said. “We can innovate the next big things.”
Looking Ahead: YSK 2026
From August 5th to August 9th, 308 students will walk into Moi Girls High School in Nairobi to showcase 154 projects, betting on that same door opening for them. Centered on the theme “Shaping Kenya’s AI Future Using STEM,” the exhibition is open to students, parents, and teachers looking to view these real-world solutions and interact with the innovators.
