THE WINNERS OF YLP: WHAT’S NEXT?

Why were 10 winners originally planned, but in the end there were just 5?
Because we received fewer applications than we expected – 39 to be precise. Less competition for each grant definitely means fewer grants, we have provided this opportunity in the program provisions. Point 5.6 says that the foundation independently makes decisions about applicants for grants. Our experts, led by a member of the Board of Trustees Eldar Akhmetgaliyev, selected 13 people to participate in the final. You agree that it wouldn’t be a real competition if there were 10 winners out of that number, don’t you?

What will happen next with the winners?
We have already held an individual meeting with everyone to explain how we are working further. Each of them is assigned a mentor. They were Eldar Akhmetgaliyev, a Stanford doctoral student and co-founder of Biodock Inc. Nurlybek Mursali and the well-proven winners of the previous years of the IT internship program — Master and head of the American POWr startup in Kazakhstan Aigul Imadildaeva, Master and Senior Data Scientist at Petrel AI Aigerim Sagandykova, and a doctoral student, analyst at the re:Point Aidos Sarsembayev. These days mentors and winners get to know each other. Mentors will help the guys choose the courses they really need and recommend opportunities that the guys may not be acknowledged of. After that, the winners will respond to our brief so that we can understand at what point in their development they are now. By the end of June, they will decide on courses for professional growth and will provide us with this information. We will study their choice in order to prevent the winner from getting into ineffective or questionable educational projects. And then the study will begin. We assume that this will be an online training, because the funds for the trip (flight cost, accommodation, meals etc.) will simply “eat up” the lion’s share of the grant. But we will also support them if they choose to study offline in Kazakhstan or abroad. The main thing is that training contributes to the development of hard or soft skills of the winners. The subjects of possible training were described in detail in the program provisions and published before the start of the competition.

And what if the grant holder doesn’t find courses in a month?
The search will continue, and every 2 months he or she will inform us about the results. In any case, the grant is valid for one year, i.e. until the end of May next year. So at the end of May 2023, we expect to receive financial and creative reports from the project participants on the courses completed, qualifications obtained and expenses made.

Please tell us about the winners.
Asset Daniyarov, 29, works at the National Laboratory Astana, specializes in bioinformatics. Kuat Madeniet is 25, he is a bank employee, a data engineer. Aida Sagandykova is in her final year of bachelor’s degree at the Lomonosov Moscow State University branch in Kazakhstan, her major is applied mathematics and computer science. Ainur Kymbatova, 26, is working in a Kazakh company developing software. And 32-year-old Tulegen Akhmetov is a doctoral student at Nazarbayev University, specializing in robotics. We believe that these young people are worthy of the investments and will become the vanguard of the development of the IT industry in Kazakhstan in the coming years.