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Four students of Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College (CFBC) have placed St. Kitts and Nevis firmly on the regional innovation map after capturing first place in the Computer Coding category at the 2026 Caribbean STEM Olympiad.
The victorious team — Josiah Davis, Fraimer De La Cruz, Nathan Lewis and Nikhal Dore — outperformed competitors from Jamaica, Belize and Guyana with a forward-thinking digital platform designed to modernise the Government’s ASPIRE Programme and strengthen financial literacy among Caribbean youth.
All four students are members of CFBC’s AI and Coding Club, which is in its inaugural year and was founded by team member and club president Fraimer De La Cruz.
The annual Caribbean STEM Olympiad, hosted by the Caribbean Science Foundation, is now in its fourth year and features competitions in Mathematics, Computer Coding and Robotics and Electronic Systems. This year’s event was held from January 12–18, 2026, bringing together some of the region’s brightest young minds.
The students’ winning project focused on enhancing the ASPIRE Programme — Achieving Success through Personal Investment, Resources, and Education — which was launched by the Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis in September 2024. The programme provides eligible youth with $500 in savings and $500 invested in local publicly traded shares.
While innovative in intent, the students identified gaps in the programme’s digital interface, particularly in helping young people understand how their investments work.
During the team’s presentation, Nikhal Dore shared the personal experience that inspired their idea.
“A few years ago, I received $1,000 through a government programme in Saint Kitts and Nevis. But that investment money was just sitting there. I had no idea what it was invested in, what investing really meant, or whether my stocks were going up or down,” Dore explained. “If I didn’t understand it, then thousands of other young people probably didn’t either.”
That insight became the foundation for a platform aimed at transforming ASPIRE from a funding initiative into an interactive tool for education, responsible investing and long-term financial empowerment across the Caribbean.
INNOVATION THAT IMPRESSED JUDGES
Under the guidance of lecturer Enoete Inanga, the team spent months developing a feature-rich proof-of-concept platform that judges described as “a well put-together concept with tremendous potential.”
Key features of the enhanced ASPIRE platform include an AI-powered chatbot named “Sparky” that provides personalised investment guidance, interactive learning modules on investing fundamentals, a gamified leaderboard, educational games, and a clean data-visualisation dashboard to help users track portfolio performance.
The platform also proposes a CARICOM-focused investment marketplace, exposing young users to regional financial institutions and encouraging broader economic awareness.
As the team noted during their presentation, innovation does not always require creating something entirely new, but improving existing systems and unlocking their full potential.
The students were formally recognised at the Caribbean STEM Olympiad Awards and Closing Ceremony on Sunday, January 18. Their project has been praised not only for its technical strength, but for its practical relevance to real policy initiatives.
With further development and access to real-time market data, the team believes the platform could be expanded across CARICOM, helping to transform youth investment programmes throughout the region into powerful financial education tools.
The achievement marks a significant milestone for CFBC and highlights the growing role of Caribbean youth in using technology to solve regional challenges.
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