Ufot Ekong
Ufot Ekong, a Tokyo-based Nigerian student, achieved a great
feat recently by not only breaking a 50-year-old record in Tokai
University, Japan, he indeed solved a mathematical puzzle which
had remained unsolved for 30 years. What’s more, he
accomplished the last feat just in his first semester in the
university.
According to The Cable, an online newspaper which quoted The
Independent which also quoted Flotilla Magazine, Ekong, who
studied at Tokai University in Tokyo, achieved a first class degree
in electrical engineering and scored the best marks at the
university since 1965, breaking a whopping 50-year jinx.
The feat was deemed little surprise, as he was only in his first
semester in the university when he solved a 30-year-old
mathematics equation.
His accomplishment, no doubt, brings accolade to Nigeria.
Throughout his university career, Ekong is said to have won six
awards for academic excellence despite maintaining two jobs
alongside his studies so he can pay his way as a student.
He had earlier designed a car.
Ekong is not only an engineering genius, he is also a polyglot as
he speaks English, French, Japanese and Yoruba, and even won
a Japanese language award for foreigners.
He is currently working for Nissan and already has two patents
for electronic car design to his name.
He is now studying for a Ph.D. For his project, he made the
electric car, which travels as fast as 128 kilometres per hour,
operating on charged batteries.
Founded in 1924, Tokai University is a prestigious private
university based in the Japanese capital.
It is focused on the sciences and technology and roughly 60 per
cent of all students are enrolled in these schools.