Nurbek Khalmatay

Despite his young age (21), Nurbek Khalmatay, a fourth year student at Satbayev University, has managed to achieve a lot. But it is not just about winning the Yessenov Foundation competitions – the Yessenov Scholarship and the Yessenov Launch Pad (YLP). A citizen of Almaty, who prefers to work out at the gym and train for wall climbing in his free time, also trained at a large company, improved his knowledge of the English language, passed IELTS, and won a competition for the academic mobility program. He answered our questions while in Rome, where he is currently studying.

Nurbek, how did you do in the YLP grant competition?
The competition turned out to be difficult, but the interview left a stronger impression. There were a lot of interesting questions that helped me understand myself better. I also remember the second stage of the competition, during which our team had a hard time unraveling the task’s character interactions. Later, I tried to complete it again on my own, and managed to do it in 15 minutes.

And what courses did you choose?
I chose an Introduction to Machine Learning course on Anatoliy Karpov’s Start ML learning platform. Karpov is a well-known data analytics specialist and one of the leading experts in Data Science in Russia nowadays. Anatoliy is known for his educational projects and karpov.courses platform for training analysts and machine learning specialists. His courses have gained popularity due to their practical approach focused on real business and analytics cases. I studied for nine months, from last year to June 2024. Since the Yessenov Foundation grant’s amount exceeded the cost of the machine learning courses, I was able to take an additional intensive offline English course – Just Speak It. It was a small group of people. I passed the IELTS trial test twice at the language center. The teacher was a professional – a graduate of the University of Arizona, holder of the TESOL certificate. At the end of the course, I got 5.5 band in the IELTS Official.

Why did you choose those two courses?
The machine learning course helped me master such skills as data analysis and model development that are in-demand in IT industry. They are necessary to build a core foundation for my career because I plan to work in this field. Although I was always good at Mathematics than at learning languages, I had studied English before. Having learned about the competition for the academic mobility program at the university, I decided to improve my English since an IELTS certificate was required to participate in the competition. Besides, English proficiency is quite important in my professional field because I should understand all the information without translation.

How was the training structured?
The machine learning course consisted of 5 blocks. We were taught Python development, machine learning itself as well as the basics of deep learning, statistics and A/B testing. Besides, we were instructed how to pass interviews for IT jobs. Among the teachers there were such expert practitioners as Nerses Bagiyan, Aleksei Kozharin, Nikita Tabakaev, and others. The training was conducted on a special LMS platform, each block ended with a final project. Working on the projects we could apply theory into practice. In the final project we had to build a recommendation system for publications on social media. Mentoring assistance was available throughout the course. In each class discussion thread the course participants shared their ideas. We also had an access to the Career Center where HR professionals assisted in job search.

In the English course the communicative approach was used. The course was mostly focused on speech practice and ways to improve English vocabulary and grammar. We practiced English directly with the teacher and with each other.

What did you learn from the course content, and how did the Yessenov Foundation’s grant funding help you?
The main result was that I learned to successfully complete practical tasks and understand how machine learning algorithms work. I started to actively participate in hackathons as a data analyst and achieved results. Suffice it to recall participation in the Almaty Ecology Challenge when we developed a software sensor for checking car exhaust gases and took the third place. As for the English language is concerned, I began to read more and better understand professional content because all useful books and articles in our field are written in English.

Both courses’ expenses were fully covered by the Foundation’s grant. Last year I managed to train in the field of data analytics at the Big Data product development department at the Beeline company. I worked for six months with their external monetization team, performing various tasks from testing various hypotheses to creating showcases. One of my mentors was Yeldos Adetbekov who is the winner of the Yessenov Data Lab program. He helped me a lot in problem solving.

Where are you now, what have you been doing, and what are your plans for the future?
I am currently finishing my bachelor’s degree at Satbayev University. After passing IELTS I applied for a student exchange program, and in June I received an invitation to Sapienza Universita di Roma for the fall semester 2024-2025, having won an Erasmus+ scholarship. I am currently in Rome. After completing the academic mobility program I will return to the university and work on my thesis. One of my goals is getting a job offer from Yandex or another Big Tech companies. I would also like to enroll in the Yandex School of Data Analysis for a two-year program similar to a Master’s degree.

Nurbek, how do you like to spend your free time?
I try to devote my free time to sports: swimming, working out at the gym or training for rock climbing. A special mobile application makes it available.