Kazakhstan citiznes offered half a million tenge for smart or green idea

Any Kazakhstan resident can receive 500 thousand tenge ($3.3 thousand) for a smart or green idea, Tengrinews.kz reports citing General Manager of Astana Innovations Batyrbek Dautbayev. “This year we plan to hold a contest called Smart and green technologies. All projects in EXPO-2017 are aimed at energy saving and energy efficiency,” Dautbayev said at the briefing. This will be the second Astana Startup Weekend. The contest’s prize pool is similar to the one of last year: 1 million tenge ($6.7 thousand): 500 thousand tenge ($3.3 thousand) for the 1st place, 300 thousand tenge ($2 thousand) for the 2nd place and 200 thousand tenge ($1,3 thousand) for the 3rd place. “Registration of participants has already started at asw.kz. Around 70 people have already got registered. Registration is open and will last until May 17, inclusively. To get registered one should fill in an application form in Registration section of the website and then come to the event at 06:00 p.m. on May 17,” General Manager of Astana Innovations said. The contest is expected to be participated by 150-200 people. The jury will include representatives of private businesses and state authorities. According to the organizers, FlyFarm team (2 students of Nazarbayev University) won the contest last year, presenting a project of production of protein feed from fly larvae that is superior to most of the existing combined and natural feeds for poultry and fish farms. “They received over 6 million tenge ($40 thousand) for development of their production. They have bought the required equipment and obtained all necessary documents (certificates, patents and others). They are already producing their goods. They work in Astana with large companies as KazAgroInnovations, KazAgro. They already have contracts with several poultry factories and a network of fish stores,” Dautbayev said. By Altynai Zhumzhumina