11 WINNERS

Among the winners are the students of the Nazarbayev University, Suleyman Demirel University, Semey State Medical University, al-Farabi Kazakh National University and Kazakh-British technical university. The winners will travel to laboratory of their choice in different international universities to undertake a research internship through May-August of this year.

The competition launched in October 2016. Applications closed in mid-December followed by the selection of finalists for the next round. The second (and final) round of the competition opened with 38 candidates who continued their battle for the prize. Experts of the Foundation carried out the final stage of the contest in Almaty and Astana on January 13 and 14 respectively.

– During the first round, we assessed submitted documents, paying attention to the contestants’ academic performance, scientific work, essays and recommendations, while the final test highlighted psychological and personal qualities of the applicants. This is done in the form of a game by a coach-psychologist, – explained the program’s coordinator Ilzira Aldagarova.

The tasks given to the contestants were different, and included those that helped to identify applicants’ goals and motives for participation, their maturity, communication skills and so on. The last round results of the competition identified the winners.

– As stated in the provisions of the program, we choose 10 winners. However, not this time – this year we were able to select 11 winners, with subsequent increase of the program’s budget, of course.  These are talented and promising students. The experts who conducted the final round of the competition told me they were positively surprised by the quality and number of scientific works of students in Astana, while their Almaty peers demonstrated strong traits of character and soft skills – told the Executive Director of the Foundation Aiganym Malisheva.

After the official announcement of the winners, the students will start yet another important phase of the preparations for the internship – search for laboratories and obtaining visas. The first student is expected to leave for the internship at the end of May 2017.