The victory of the NU students team at the international competition in the field of green and clean technologies
A team of Nazarbayev University students led by Aidana Toleshova and Daulet Aytimbaev won the Theme awards – Clean mobility nomination in the Grand Final of the international ClimateLaunchpad competition in Amsterdam. To participate in the competition, the guys presented the HydroPlat project – the production of special nanomaterials for cars powered by hydrogen fuel.
The HydroPlat project aims to protect the environment from toxic waste by producing useful nanomaterials that will replace platinum in hydrogen cars. In particular, it involves the use of genetically modified cyanobacteria that can absorb hydrogen sulfide, convert hydrogen to gas and burn to produce nanomaterials.
A grant of € 5,000, a free ticket to the SET Tech Festival, where their project will be presented, and a Hydroplat team received an invitation to the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue as a prize for winning this nomination. For their support and assistance in the implementation of the project, students express their gratitude to Professor Dr Abdulla Mahboob.
We remind you that the Green Campus Office and Astana Business Campus are the national partners of Climate Launchpad, and this event has been held at the Nazarbayev University for the second year. This year, more than 80 applications from all over Kazakhstan were submitted to participate in the competition, of which 12 teams went through to the semi-final and proposed a wide variety of ideas in the field of ecology and environmental protection. Teams came from different parts of our country: Aktobe, Almaty, Kokshetau, Karaganda, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Taldykorgan.
As a result, in the National final of the international competition Climate Launchpad, aimed at finding and supporting talents in the field of green and clean technologies, the victory was won by two teams – Hydroplat and dECO, which then took part in the Grand Final of the competition in the Netherlands.
Both teams representing Kazakhstan performed confidently and with dignity, having received the attention and support of spectators from different parts of the world. Considering that all the teams participating in this competition are aimed at solving the environmental problems of society and the formation of ecological culture of the population, all teams can rightly be considered winners, since all of them will make their feasible contribution to improving environmental safety and ecological balance in the world.
With this project, the team also participated in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) contest, which is held annually in Boston (Massachusetts, USA). This is the largest international competition in the field of synthetic biology, in which more than six thousand students and teachers from around the world take part. Nazarbayev University students won the iGEM gold medal twice in 2017 and 2018. This year, the guys received a bronze medal and their project was among the best energy projects presented in the competition. The team consists of 21 people, all of them are students of 2-3 courses of schools of natural, social and humanitarian sciences and engineering and digital sciences of NU.