Results of the Startup Academy Educational Project Announced

Supporting youth in acquiring progressive knowledge is one of the key state policy priorities and an important focus of the Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation.

Today, the winners of Demo Day and the graduates of the Startup Academy Astana Hub course were officially awarded.

Startup Academy is an educational programme in technological entrepreneurship based on the Astana Hub educational platform. The course provides fundamental knowledge in technology entrepreneurship and helps participants step by step create their own startup using the Lean Startup methodology (or "Lean Startup").

The main idea is to minimize losses and risks when launching new products by testing hypotheses in the market and receiving feedback as quickly as possible.

Students from Astana IT University completed the course over a three-month period (October – December 2024) free of charge. After training, they presented their startup projects. Each participant received a certificate of course completion, which serves as a valuable advantage for further participation in incubators and accelerators to develop their startups.

Student projects were assessed based on their relevance, uniqueness, potential, and other criteria.

The winners of the competition were:

- 1st place – "Foodsave" (CEO: Arsen Aliev, Behruz Tokhtamishov, Bakhtiyar Atygaev, Tomiris Zhusupova, Anel Moldash, Teimur Kisaev, Denis Shin);
- 2nd place – "SARQYT" (CEO: Akbar Yergaliev, Assel Isatayeva);
- 3rd place (shared) - "AI-Based Digital Marketing System" (CEO: Ayat Mergenbai) and "Apply" (CEO: Madiyar Sarbaev, Amir Alenov, Vladislav Kutsenko, Artem Karmykov).