FIRST Global Team Moldova has won the FIRST Global Challenge 2026 in Incheon, Republic of Korea, earning one gold and two silver medals at the international robotics competition that brings together national teams from nearly 190 countries. Moldova claimed gold as part of the tournament’s winning alliance alongside Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and El Salvador. The team also secured silver medals for its robot’s engineering design and its Ember Mesh innovation project.
The Moldovan national team was represented by ENIGMA, a team originating from the village of Boșcana in the Criuleni district. Four of its five student members — Uliana Vîntu, Gabriel Josan, Valeria Untila, and Augustin Leșan — attend the “Mihai Stratulat” Theoretical High School in Boșcana, placing a rural school at the heart of Moldova’s national team. Daniel Țanga, from the “Boris Dinga” Theoretical High School in Criuleni, completed the student lineup. The team was mentored by Elena Frunza of the Boșcana school and Veronica Eșanu, Coordinator of the National Educational Robotics Program and mentor with the Innovate Moldova Programme. ENIGMA earned the opportunity to represent Moldova after its performance at the 2026 FIRST Tech Challenge Moldova National Championship.
To address the competition’s challenge, the team brought its technological innovation to the international stage. Ember Mesh is a network of autonomous sensor capsules designed to detect forest fires early beneath the tree canopy, where conventional aerial monitoring may be less effective. The capsules transmit environmental data to a monitoring platform and can be deployed using drones or helicopters in remote and hard-to-reach areas. Designed as an affordable solution that communities around the world could adopt, Ember Mesh advanced to the final round of the FIRST Global New Technology Experience and earned the silver FIRST Global Innovator Award, placing it among the competition’s leading innovation projects.
The achievement further strengthens Moldova’s outstanding record at FIRST Global. The country entered the 2026 competition ranked first in FIRST Global’s all-time gold-medal standings with eight gold medals. Its victory in Incheon brings that total to nine gold medals.
Since joining FIRST Global in 2017, Moldova has earned bronze in Mexico in 2018; three gold medals in Dubai in 2019; gold in Geneva in 2022; gold and silver in Singapore in 2023; two gold medals in Athens in 2024; and gold and an honorable mention in Panama in 2025. The 2026 competition adds another gold medal and two silver medals — the Zhang Heng Award for Engineering Design and the FIRST Global Innovator Award — to the country’s growing international record.
Moldova’s success on the international stage is rooted in more than a decade of investment in educational robotics. Established in 2014 as the RoboClub pilot, the National Educational Robotics Program has grown from a small number of participating schools into a nationwide network of more than 270 robotics clubs in schools and libraries, reaching over 60,000 students through hands-on STEM education.
The programme equips students with practical experience in programming, engineering, design, teamwork, and problem-solving, establishing a pathway from introductory robotics activities in schools to advanced national and international competitions.
The preparation and participation of FIRST Global Team Moldova were supported by the Ministry of Education and Research and the National Agency for Curriculum and Evaluation; the Innovate Moldova Programme, funded by Sweden and the United Kingdom and implemented by the Foundation for Development of the Republic of Moldova; Premier Energy Distribution; the Technical University of Moldova and FabLab Chișinău; and Ozonteh.
