NOW THEY ARE 15!

 According to the Foundation, 78 applications from all over Kazakhstan were submitted to the competition. The participants included natives of all major cities of the country, as well as Zhezkazgan, Kostanay, Aktau and Saryagash.

— 24 applicants went to the second round, including 3 girls. Interestingly that two of them won the competition, said Romisisa Bashaeva, manager of the Foundation’s programs. — During the second round, the members of our expert council interviewed each of the contestants. According to the results, each of them gave their points to the participants, which we compared with the ratings given by the Foundation staff at the first stage of the competition. In the evaluation of candidates they focused not only on the technical knowledge of the candidates and their knowledge of English, but also on personal qualities and motivation. Now, after we have made sure that all winners will be able to go to the United States for an internship, we proceed to the selection of start-ups and procurement of appropriate visas. I think that we will finish this work in March, and in April all winners will go on the road.

A few words about the winners. 22-year-old Aidana Kurmasheva graduated from a bachelor’s program at a Kazakh-British Technical University and works at the Almaty startup, Codebusters. Another winner of the competition is a graduate of International IT University, Vadim Miropolsky working as a developer in a large IT company. He applied for the contest last year, but without success, luck smiled on him at the second attempt:
— For the year I moved to a stronger team, picked up the missing skills. I expect a lot from this internship. First of all, I want to grow to a higher level: to understand how the team is formed, how decisions are made, how startups are looking for funding and first users, Vadim shared.

Third winner – graduate of Nazarbayev University, Yerassyl Diyas. He gained experience working in the largest Internet holding of Kazakhstan and the Indian startup, Horafin ltd. And Altai Sabyrbay works at the Center for Analysis and Investigation of Cyber Attacks in the capital of the country. The winner himself is from Sarani, he graduated from Karaganda Technical University, and at the Beijing Institute of Technology received a master’s degree. Aigerim Sagandykova from Semey, works as a senior data analyst in one of the major Kazakhstan banks. A graduate of Suleyman Demirel University, she learned about the Foundation, becoming a lecturer at the Yessenov Data Lab this year:
— The internship will give me a great experience, I’m sure.” But I was interested in the very process of the competition: the preparation of documents and the passage of the interview. I remember that in my motivation letter I wanted to convey more than just retelling my experience, namely, a strong desire and love for what I do. And I did it, Aigerim shared.

Galimzhan Yessenov, a the founder of the Foundation, commented on the final stage of the competition: “the quality of applications is constantly increasing every year, and the winners of the competition join the community of Kazakhstan people in Silicon Valley, we receive excellent feedback from Americans after internships, and the program certainly plays an important role in the development of domestic IT-industry “. It should be noted that the competition held this autumn for the third time, was joined by all citizens of Kazakhstan who have appropriate qualifications and level of English. Thus, already 15 Kazakhstan IT specialists have had the opportunity to work out half a year in leading US startups.