NU students received grants from the President

Students of Nazarbayev University were awarded Tauelsizdik Urpaqtary grants at the President’s residence Akorda. Head of State Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has congratulated and handed prizes to the winners at the ceremony.

Third-year NU SSH student Arsen Orazbek, a graduate of NU GSB  Gaukhar Zhakazhanova and a Master student of NU SEDS  Margulan Yermek were awarded the Tauelsizdik Urpaqtary grants in the amount of 3 million tenge each.

Young citizens of Kazakhstan, between the age of 14 and 29, participated in the contest. In total, 30 grants were awarded on a competitive basis to develop new ideas and initiatives in the following areas: Science, Culture, Business, Media and  Information Technology.

Arsen Orazbek and his colleagues from NU Kazakhstan iGEM 2021 team were selected in the “Science” category. The iGEM team is planning to use the grant to improve oil production and clean up oil-contaminated sites through bioproduct development using the synthetically modified P.putida bacterium. As a reminder, this November, the iGEM team has been awarded a gold medal at the International competition in synthetic biology.

Two grants in the category “Information Technology” were awarded to Gaukhar Zhakazhanova, MBA program graduate, and Margulan Yermek, a second-year NU SEDS Master student in Engineering Management.

Gaukhar is planning to use the grant for a hybrid FocusED now-SaaS smartphone platform development to be integrated with a virtual classroom mobile application.

Margulan is a product manager for Essentail Technologies, LLC. His grant is going to be used to implement the Aero software – online monitoring of educational exams. 

We sincerely congratulate our winners and wish them further success in their research endeavors!