THREE WILL GO TO CHINA

1. Dinsultan Absattar (20, from Kyzylorda, SDU student)
2. Olzhas Adiatov (26, from Kostanai, Nazarbayev University graduate)
3. Arman Zharmagambetov (22, from Aktobe, IITU student).

Dinsultan created a prototype of a universal robot used in factories for various purposes, for example, to assemble cars. It was designed on Arduino UNO. A graduate of the Robotics and Mechatronics Department Olzhas is working to solve issues related to planning the robotic systems’ action sequences when faced with obstacles. And the third winner Arman is studying mathematical and computer modeling at his Alma mater. He participated in the development of an autonomous robot-guide for the EXPO-2017.

The internship will take place at the Makeblock company, a robotics startup, located in Shenzhen, China. In 2013 Makeblock was a team of 10 but today, it is more than 120 professionals. The company is a platform for creating DIY (do-it-yourself) robots and cooperates with the Arduino and Microsoft. The startup has managed to attract investments in the amount of $150 million and has distributing offices in 40 countries around the world.

The Foundation’s Expert Board processed 38 applications, submitted to the contest, to select the winners. The Board was represented by Irina Grichshenko, operations director for the Shakhmardan Yessenov Foundation, Tilektes Adambekov, founder and CEO of the Silk Road Kazakh-Chinese cooperation center, and members of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees – Yeraly Sauranbayev and Eldar Akhmetgaliyev (PhD). The project manager of the Lego Robotics Education project and Head of the National projects department of the Meloman group Nizami Mamedov was among the members of the Expert Board too.

Irina Grichshenko commented on the results of the competition: “Our original plan was to send five people for the internship, but after we carefully studied all the submitted applications, we came to the conclusion that we had three really strong contestants to win.  Their specialization and the Chinese company’s need coincided to the greatest extent. We did see a lot of interesting ideas and potential among the contestants that are from all over Kazakhstan, and we see them as prospective participants in Foundation’s other grant competitions and hope to see their ideas come into life sooner or later”.