World Monitor Mag, Digitalisation WM_June 2019 web | Page 10
DESTINATION KAZAKHSTAN
innovation activity of Kazakhstani IT
specialists and companies has attracted
investments of almost 29 billion tenge.
You see, the domestic startup ecosystem
has been formed relatively recently, but
we have already managed to achieve
significant results in this direction. For
example, changes in legislation were
initiated, conditions were created to
simplify the visa and employment
regimes for foreign participants of
the international technology park
of IT startups ‘Astana Hub’, while
tax preferences were introduced for
participants, and 150 incubation projects
were selected with about 50 startups
released. Additionally, basic research
is being conducted in areas such as
the Smart city, Industry 4.0, Big Data,
Blockchain, Internet of Things, and
artificial intelligence. To date, most of
the projects have already passed the
activation stage and it is very important
for us that startups continue to develop
even further.
The ‘Astana Hub’, in terms of further
innovative development of the country is
of great importance. Given its potential
and successful start, we assume that
it will become one of the key elements
in the development of the country's
innovation ecosystem. For this, we will
develop the innovation ecosystem in five
key areas. First of all, we are positioning
8
world monitor
the technology park as a ‘single window’
for participants in the startup ecosystem
of the entire country. Secondly, it is
important to create our own financial
instruments for Astana Hub and to provide
grants for the IT start-ups. The third
important element is the development
of corporate innovation in the private
sector. The work being carried out should
lead to an increase in the importance of
Kazakhstan in international ratings and
the development of the ‘Future Cities’
concept, as well as the development of
the investor base.
In other words, Astana Hub should
become a kind of umbrella for the entire
innovation ecosystem of Kazakhstan,
uniting development institutions, start-
up projects, investors, domestic IT
companies and other players in the
venture capital market.
You have now talked about plans
for further development in various
sectors of the economy, but what
about the prospects for digital
development of the government
itself?
Here we are also implementing a very
important project, which in the near
future, I hope, will radically change the
very paradigm of government. I'm talking
about the project ‘Smart Data Ukimet’,
which, by the way, was presented at the
opening of ‘Astana Hub’. This unique
system aims at forming a single space
of big data from various sources, in order
to analyze large volumes of information
using the elements of artificial intelligence
and promptly predict scenarios for events
for our country’s government.
The fact is that a large amount of useful
information has now been accumulated
in the databases of information systems
within state bodies. These data are
valuable both for intellectual analysis
within each state body and at the
level of the government as a whole.
Thus, a significant amount of Big Data
has already been created, which are
suitable for analysis with specialized
tools. Without creating a single space
and implementing specialized tools for
analyzing big data this information loses
its value by at least half.
I believe that Smart Data Ukimet should
be considered as the basic basis for
the digital transformation of state
management for economic sectors.
Therefore, we are now engaged in the
implementation of digital prediction
tools based on artificial intelligence and
Big Data. At the first stage, case studies
were already modeled by connecting the
systems of the healthcare, education,
finance, and labor spheres.