12 WEEKS IN SILICON VALLEY

The event will take place in three cities: Almaty, Karaganda and Astana. The purpose of the championship is to help the developers in enhancing their soft and hard skills and to select the best of them to participate in the summer program nFactorial Incubator 2017. Every participant of the program is expected to create and launch his or her original mobile app.

– Our goal for the next 5 years is to prepare 10 00 developers in the country and to run 10 000 mobile products. The rules of the upcoming championship are simple: each participant will have 2 minutes to present to the jury of five people their product (with slide presentation), – said Arman Suleimenov, ZeroToOneLabs.com, CEO.

The jury of the competition includes the founder of the Open Technologies Group, a large IT company based in Astana, Kairat Akhmetov and Rashid Dyusembayev, the head of the Mega Startup Lab, a business unit of a large shopping center, dedicated to innovations in IT sector and carrying out hackathons (developer forums where solutions to problems are generated by teams). A representative of the Foundation will also be joining the jury.

– Three winners of the championship will receive an educational grant from the Foundation in the amount of $10 000 each –  explains the Executive Director of the Shakhmardan Yessenov Foundation Aiganym Malisheva. – Thanks to these grants, the students will be able to afford 12 intensive weeks in Silicon Valley at one of the startup incubators to gain a tremendous experience, and to employ this knowledge once they are back in Kazakhstan.

The rest of the championship participants – and a total of 50 is anticipated – will be able to do the internship by the means of their own funds or through a sponsorship.  The championship kicks off on 21 January in Almaty at the Kazakh-British technical university, and will continue on January 28 in Karagandy, ending on February 11 in Astana. At the end of each day one winner will be announced.

ZeroToOneLabs.com is a Kazakhstan company that creates its own mobile products and educates mobile app developers. Since its foundation in May 2015, it has already launched more than 110 mobile applications and trained more than 200 engineers and designers. The Shakhmardan Yessenov Science and Education Foundation was created in Kazakhstan in 2013 with the purpose to develop education, science and innovation in the country. 2017 year marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of Academician Yessenov.