IT innovations

Description of initiative

We were among the first to launch the Smart Zholy program, where we help young Kazakh startups to enter the global market through Singapore. More than 2,000 talented Kazakhs participated in the program, 27 promising startups made it to the top 100 best startups in South East Asia and Wunder.kz startup attracted venture capital investments from a Singaporean fund.  

As part of the Method PRO program of IT internships, 418 talented students were selected out of more than 5,000 applications and had an opportunity to attend a special programming course, intern in leading companies of Kazakhstan and launch their own IT projects upon the completion of the course. 

We have supported an Hour of Code global campaign in Kazakhstan since 2018, where schoolchildren across the world become acquainted with programming. With the support from the Foundation in 2018 and 2019, every tenth school student in Kazakhstan got familiarized with programming by writing their first lines of code for a future game, program, or mobile app. This is how they become the next Zuckerberg. 

The Foundation also provides support for the nationwide stages of the KazRoboProject and KazRoboSport championship. 3,000 participants received support in 2018 and 4,500 young talents in 2019. 24 projects that won regional selection made it to the finals of the project competition in 2018 and 30 in 2019, including 15 projects in the 10 to 15 age category. 

The Foundation helps talented Kazakhs through grants, robotics competitions and special programs for future engineers. Our winners become prize winners at major international competitions from NASA to innovation challenges in China and the United Arab Emirates.