Fresh from completing his Bachelor of Science in Applied Computer Science at Chuka University, John Lapit Tingoi has already stepped onto the world stage. The true north defining his drive is survival. “I watched my mum struggle with nothing. She was left with six children and no support. I always told her, ‘One day this will end.’ That promise has pushed me my whole life.”
In July, he won the Kenyan leg of the International Quant Championship and was placed third globally, competing against finalists from 12 countries.
“When I saw I was the last among the top eight in Kenya, I told myself, ‘This is your moment. You must change the story.’”
He spent many nights refining his winning models. “The judges said my ideas and hypotheses showed deep understanding,” he says with quiet pride.
"Data doesn’t lie. It removes emotion and bias. If you understand it well, you can predict outcomes and make better decisions."
The problem he is most determined to solve is generational—breaking cycles of poverty by mastering and applying data. Today, as a research consultant with WorldQuant, he builds predictive signals that financial markets use. “Numbers are very important,” he explains.
“Data doesn’t lie. It removes emotion and bias. If you understand it well, you can predict outcomes and make better decisions.”
He sees Kenya undergoing major cultural shifts—youth taking ownership of their future, global access becoming democratised, and data-driven thinking gaining prominence. “My work fits into this change because it shows that even without a finance background, if you learn the skills, you can play on the global stage,” he says.
He says data “can transform agriculture, finance, even how counties are run. If we learn to use it well, Kenya can move faster than most people imagine.” His work touches ordinary Kenyans by shaping investment decisions, inspiring rural students, and proving that talent from marginalised places can thrive globally.
What sets him apart? “I became a quant without studying finance. I trained my machine-learning models to understand the markets before I understood them myself. I think that’s my edge—turning limitations into power.”
–Ndugu Abisai