Aibek Rakhim

Once a year Shakhmardan Yessenov Foundation holds a competition and chooses the Academician Yessenov’s Scholarship holders. Since 2017, the admission was open to the students of 2 and 3 years of technical specialties who study at any University in Kazakhstan. During the year the Foundation pays scholarship of 25.000 tenge per month in addition to the fellows’ core state scholarship. One of the 2017 competition’s winner is a student of the International Information Technologies University and future IT-specialist — Aibek Rakhim from Pavlodar.

Aibek, how did you win the contest?
Friends advised me to participate, saying, “You have a good chance, so try it.” Before applying for the competition, I gathered my portfolio and focused on producing motivational video. So I have passed the first round of selection. Then we presented ourselves to other participants, demonstrated our leadership and other qualities and skills. I remember the expert commission was recording all the time watching us. And I realized that it’s necessary to do my best, now or never! So and I have passed to the winners list. Thank them for believing in me.

Did this scholarship make you free and help to implement your plans?
Certainly! 2017 was a very productive and effective year to me. Thanks to Yessenov’s scholarship, I was able to afford studying at nFactorial incubator for apps developers in Astana. The program in Nazarbayev University was 3 months long. And now I’m a mobile app developer. Scholarship also bailed out when hardest financial moments in life happened.

What did you achieve for the year?
Most importantly, I developed the Tazalyk mobile app on iOS / Android. I formed a super team and opened the NS Labs company, and now we are engaged in popularization of separate waste collection in Almaty. From December 2017 to April 2018, more than 2,000 people registered with TAZALYK, and handed over more than 20 tons of garbage for recycling. That means we’ve saved over 300 trees. With the Tazalyk project, we took 1st place in the international contest “Quality Innovation of the Year” 201; we became silver medalists of the National competition “Jastar Otanga” that same year and won bronze at Startup Weekend in Astana. Our team held a joint campaign with Kazakhstan Waste Recycling (KWR) “Divide the waste and be an eco-superhero”. As a result, we awarded more than 200 Almaty residents with various prizes for separate garbage collection. We connected 6 of the collecting KWR depots to our platform; as well as we manufacture and install TAZALYK eco-boxes for collection of plastic and paper in public and private organizations. Today we have made 36 eco-boxes and 14 companies cooperate with us, carrying out a separate waste collection at their offices. Our team has had a bumpy ride. We still have various difficulties. However we believe in our strength, and just do it.

What plans do you have?
My plans are to improve the quality of life in Almaty and to develop eco-culture here. And also – to spend a productive summer. After all, in Autumn, I want to participate in a Shakhmardan Yessenov Foundation’s competition for a grant on 6-month internship in Silicon valley’s start-ups.