AS 2016 COMES TO AN END

This year 5 more best students studying natural sciences and technical disciplines had been awarded the Yessenov scholarships following a competition for the scholarship. They are not alone in pursuit of knowledge; 10 more of their peers have done research internships at world’s leading laboratories. But for today, foundation’s staff is focused on application process for a grant competition the winners of which are going to do research in the summer of 2017. From December 19 application submission is  closed and the 1st round of the competition starts, the second round will be held in mid-January in Almaty and Astana. According to its results the winners will be determined.

Ilzira Aldagarova, coordinator of the named program and the “Internships in IT startups in USA” program explains:
– Four of the winners of the IT startup program are in the States and have been there for several months already. The fifth winner – of KBTU – will start his work at 11sight start-up in January 2017. It’s a company that developed mobile application to help businesses establish communication with their customers. Abai Nusipbekov is in San Francisco working at Amplify(formerly Ticktate), Aigul Imadildaeva – in POWr, Yernar Amirgaliyev – in Digsview, and Alexandra Kim is at KarFarm. Nursultan will return at the end of June and after we draw conclusions and see the results of this first year’s run, Foundation’s management will take a decision whether the program continues in 2017-2018.

This summer the Shakhmardan Yessenov Foundation partially sponsored another project in IT by paying the tuition fee for three young Kazakhstan application and web developers, which let them participate in a two-week UNESCO Youth Mobile training project. Furthermore, three students undertook internships at China’s robotic startup Makeblock in Shenzhen, whilst Nazarbayev University’s Askarbek Orakov and Nazgul Sakenova are in Japan until January 9 on foundation’s travel grant program. They are at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, to be specific. One of the most significant events of the year took place in September, the international scientific conference on “Earthquake Science and Hazards in Central Asia”. The Almaty conference brought together more than 180 scientists, guests and participants together.

As you may know, the foundation supports chess and its development in Kazakhstan. Recently we published a book about chess for children for the first time in Kazakh. The book will be available in December in Kazakhstan’s stores. Moreover, the foundation was the main organizer and sponsor of this year’s Eurasian Blitz Chess Cup of the President of Kazakhstan that had stars of the chess world including the contender for the world chess crown Sergey Karjakin. Foundation’s active participation made it possible to hold several championships of not only Kazakhstan but also open international tournaments such as Astana Open, Almaty Open and Pavlodar Open.

Gulmira Dauletova, Deputy Director of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation further informed us:
-From 17 to 24 December Astana will host the finals of the National Cup among children, men and women. The National Union of Chess Players organizes the tournaments while Shakhamardan Yessenov Foundation sponsors the competition. At the end of December, on 26-30, Kazakhstan’s best, Rinat Jumabaev, Murtas Kazhgaleyev, Rustam Khusnutdinov, Dinara Saduakasova and Zhansaya Abdumalik will be heading to Qatar to the World Rapid and Blitz championships.

This year’s autumn season of the Yessenov Lectures (series of guest lectures by leading experts and professionals in their fields) started at ALMAU, Satpayev KazNRTU, al-Farabi KazNU and NarXoz universities with a lecture by Eleanora Seitmuratova, doctor of geological-mineralogical sciences, academician of the International Academy of mineral resources. If you have plans to immerse yourself into innovation, launch your own start-up or VC, you may as well watch the lectures by a member of the Board of Trustees, co-founder of the Mocap Analytics company Eldar Akhmetgaliev, as well as the Investment Director of Finstar and Skolkovo Startup Academy coach Eugene Timko who gives a succinct presentation on and about the venture capital market. The General Director of Sheberbuild LLP, member of the young leaders association Global Citizen and Bolashak, Olzhas Suleimenov had his turn at the Yessenov Lecturers too. The list is closed by Ainur Absemetova, expert on civil society, who stirred up the audience with her talk about EQ.

– These and all the previous seasons of the Yessenov Lectures are available on our website and Youtube channel. Now that the exam sessions have begun in universities, we will be returning with the lectures at the end of January of the coming year. The lineup has some exciting names. It will be anything but boring, that I promise – said Grigory Lee, coordinator of the programs. Also, next week will see our traditional charitable project New Year Wish Tree start again, which will be running for its seventh consecutive year in partnership with VoxPopuli. We will gather gifts for 16 children ages 2 to 15 with different types of cancer. Children will receive their presents on the so-called Old New Year which is mid-January.

In 2017 there will be a number of event to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Academician Shakhmardan Yessenov, and the foundation has plans to implement a number of new projects in this regard. The program coordinator Nursultan Nurmukhanov mentions two of them:

– The foundation is sponsoring a team of four Kazakhstan high school students’ travel to an International Earth Science Olympiad (IESO) in France. Last year’s students returned from the Olympiad with silver and bronze. Currently I am arranging the logistics of the trip, signing contracts, etc..

Executive Director of the foundation Aiganym Malisheva adds a few final words:
– In January, next month, we are launching a new program, “Internships in the UK laboratories”. Our plans also include an international geological conference. Thirdly, we increased the budget for the Yessenov scholarship 4 times (!) – from 5 to 20 recipients. Next year we will be resuming the English language program, but this time in Korkyt-Ata Kyzylorda State University. The program will have students and faculty improve their command of the language. Native speaker trainers will cover more than 100 participants learning the language.  And last but not lease, on behalf of the foundation, I would like to thank all the media for their coverage of our foundation’s activities and programs.

– There was support from the such media entities as Khabar24, Astana TV, Almaty, Bilim, KazakhTV stations, zakon.kz, radiotochka.kz, forbes.kz, sports.kz, prosport.kz, today.kz, total.kz, tengrinews.kz web-portals and the newspapers Kapital, Liter, Caravan, Express-K, Time, Kazakhstanskaya Pravda, Moskovsky Komsomolets Kazakhstan, news agencies Kazinform, Atameken Business Channel, yorick.kz and neupusti.net educational web resource. Khabar, Kazakhstan and KazakhTV aired a 25-minute documentary about activities and outcomes of the foundation’s programs. The documentary is available on foundation’s YouTube channel, – said the Communications Specialist Roman Raifeld.