Caspian, Eurasia, Central Asia, Alatau, Khorgos - the government discussed the progress of creating a network of cross-border hubs

The government is paying special attention to supporting geological exploration, creating favourable conditions for attracting investment, developing new incentive mechanisms and further improving legislation. We must first of all hand over our underground national wealth to state companies, explore it, develop it, develop it, and then attract investors. Only then will the price rise and the state will benefit. It is necessary to use this tool more widely," Olzhas Bektenov emphasised.

The only way to ensure proper education in small schools is to implement projects to introduce online and offline learning. Teachers from support schools should be responsible for the quality of education in small schools. They should receive additional remuneration for this. They shouldperiodically visit these small schools," Bolat Zhamishev said.

• In 50 schools of Almaty region in 2023-2024 academic year, a project to improve the quality of education in subjects of natural and mathematical direction with the participation of the international public fund ‘Bilim-Innovation’ was implemented.
• In order to improve the quality of education in schools in the Mangystau region, the ‘Otpan’ project was launched in the region in the current academic year, covering 50 schools, including 35 rural schools.
• In Aktobe region, a large-scale project ‘Increasing the potential of rural schools using digital technologies’ was implemented in the 2023-2024 academic year with the support of the Ministry, with the participation of the regional akimat and the public foundation ‘Kazakhstan Khalkyna’. The project covered 12 support and 134 small schools with more than 11,000 students and about 3,500 teachers.

• The Akimat should plan to allocate financial resources from the local budget to upgrade the material and technical base of support and small schools, to provide quality Internet, to pay allowances to stimulate teachers of support schools.
• The Education Department ensures project implementation, monitoring and analysis, and quality control.
• The Methodological Centre fully supervises the training and methodological support of teachers and coordination of the educational process.
• The support school implements a set of support measures to improve the quality of education in a small-size school with full use of available resources.
• The main task of a small school is to effectively utilise the support and resources of the support school.

During detailed study of a necessary site, a potential subsoil user (investor) needs a complete picture of the studied object. For these purposes, scanning and digitisation of primary geological information stored in all geological funds of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which will be placed on the Unified platform of subsoil users," Yerlan Galiev noted.

One of the key tasks is to convert this data into a machine-readable format, which will unify and standardise the information for its further use. To solve this task, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are being used to accelerate data processing and create a Big Data base. With the integration of advanced deep learning algorithms for working with complex data (graphics and maps) and automation of the process of classification and structuring of geological data, the system will become the basis for analysis, forecasting of mineral deposits, which will improve the efficiency of work with geological information," NGS Chairman reported.

• digitisation of archived data using OCR and AI;
• digitisation of graphics for conversion into machine-readable format;
• data aggregation and formation of Big Data;
• introduction of specialised AI for data analysis.

The Kazakhstan project includes the development of interactive maps, vectorisation of graphic materials, provision of computing power and training of specialists to work with new technologies. The volume of data to be processed is 2-3 petabytes, which requires significant resources," the speaker said.

Since its establishment in 2022, 15 cooperation agreements have been signed with foreign geological services and major international companies. As part of cooperation with the US Geological Survey (USGS), an audit of the NGS by an international team of heads of foreign geological services is planned for 2025. At the suggestion of the Bureau of Energy Resources of the U.S. Department of State together with NK "Tauken-Samruk" concluded a trilateral MOU on cooperation in the assessment of lithium resources in the Aral Sea region and geochemical surveys of rare metals in the Kalba-Narym belt," Yerlan Galiev said.

Images | Depositphotos

The Head of State pays special attention to the development of rural schools. As part of the implementation of the Rural Development Concept, it is planned to build about 180 schools by 2027. This year, 42 rural schools have been commissioned, including at the expense of the Comfortable School National Project. Over the past three years, about 2,500 schools in villages have been modernised. Over 800 schools are being renovated to improve conditions and create a comfortable learning environment. Also, more than 4 thousand subject classrooms have been purchased for rural schools," Olzhas Bektenov noted.

To give you an example, a self-propelled sprayer spends 150 litres of water per hectare, that's about 750,000 litres of water for 5,000 hectares. While a drone needs 50 thousand litres to treat the same amount of area, this is more than 15 times less. In addition, a self-propelled sprayer crushes the track during operation, causing the farmer to lose about 6% of the crop. TheUAV does not cause such damage to crops," Sanzhar Nurgazinov, a representative of a company that operates agrodrones, said at the meeting.

Together with the SPK of the regions, the issue of opening demonstration and service centres for agrodrones in Turkestan, Taraz, in the regions of Abay and Zhetysu has been worked out. The issue of training of assemblers and pilots on the basis of three educational institutions: Talgar Polytechnic College, College of IT-technologies in Semey and Agricultural College in Kaplanbek village of Turkestan region," Deputy Minister of Agriculture Yermek Kenzhekhanuly noted.

Images | Depositphotos

We are confidently moving towards reaching the mark of $1bn by 2026 according to the Head of State's instruction. Today IT services from Kazakhstan are exported to 86 countries. This confirms the high demand for our digital solutions and our ability to compete at the global level," the Minister said.

We plan to train 1 million people within five years. Namely 500 thousand schoolchildren, 300 thousand students, 90 thousand civil servants, 80 thousand entrepreneurs and 30 thousand other categories of population. We are currently working on launching educational projects, including the TUMO creative technologies centre for schoolchildren. Also in October this year we opened the first in the region artificial intelligence school TomorrowSchool to train specialists in the field of AI," Zhaslan Madiyev said.