By the age of 20, he graduated with Honors from the university in 2.5 years. He founded his own digital design studio, opened his own school of robotics for children, and also became one of the developers of the akimat website on the situation with COVID-19 in Shymkent. And these are not all the facts about ZHANARTU Foundation’s scholar and the first graduating student from the “Information systems in business” bachelor program (BISB) at KIMEP University. Read more about future plans of Dinmukhammet Zholdybay in his interview below.
ZHANARTU: We congratulate you on your successful graduation! You are the first graduate of the BISB program completed your studies at KIMEP after 2.5 years. How did you manage to do so?
– Thank you for your kind words! Let me introduce myself once again. I am Dinmukhammet Zholdybay, a ZHANARTU scholar with 100% grant. And at the age of 20, I graduated from KIMEP University. First of all, I would like to note the uniqueness of the KIMEP University system – students can choose by themselves their own professors, schedules and subjects.
Now I will tell you how I managed to finish my studies in 2.5 years. On average, everyone takes 12-16 credits per semester (from the author – KIMEP University has a credit system, one subject is usually equal to 2 or 3 credits), but I took 20-22 credits each semester. I am also a graduate of the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, and therefore, in the first year, several subjects were automatically credited as passed. It was as if I had entered the second year right away. In addition, I took summer semesters. Despite such a busy schedule, I am glad that I managed to finish with a fairly high GPA: 4.15 out of 4.33. In fact, there is no secret here — you just need to love your specialty and subjects at the university.
ZHANARTU: What was the most interesting subject for you?
— Yes, there are several teachers and subjects that I liked very much. For example, Digital Graphics in Business. We were taught to create graphic designs, namely business elements and attributes, such as logos, business cards, etc. Since I was a child, I wanted to draw in the digital world. I really liked this subject. This was the beginning of a new me as a graphic designer. Inspired by this, almost a year ago I founded the “Dali” studio of graphic design, branding, identity. Thanks to this subject.
I was also interested in several subjects not from my major: “Managament accounting” and “Financial accounting”. It was very interesting and useful for me to learn how accounting works. At the moment, I am one of the founders of ThePoint venture fund and work with many projects. The knowledge I gained from these subjects changed my thinking about company’s cash flow and turned out to be very useful, because right now it is important for me to understand not only the technical part, but also the financial part of various projects.
ZHANARTU: Tell us about the BISB program and your impressions about KIMEP?
— In general, my opinion about KIMEP is only positive.
After school, I had a choice between KBTU and KIMEP. In my case, KIMEP gave me more interesting opportunities. I knew that I wanted to work with startups in the future. Fortunately, KIMEP announced a brand-new program “Information Systems in Business”. And I do not regret my choice at all, because the system and quality of education at this university have always been at the highest level. There is no division into groups, and this gives a good opportunity to communicate with different people. For example, as a freshman, I had friends and acquaintances from the fourth and other courses, since we had the same selective subjects.
Unfortunately, the last year all students had to study online because of the pandemic. But KIMEP gave me diverse student life during the time I spent on campus. It was interesting and exciting. Thanks to student organizations. They made student life at the university more interesting with their intellectual and useful activities. For instance, I was a member of the “Enactus” student club, which engaged in various projects in social entrepreneurship.
ZHANARTU: We see that it was easy for you to combine excellent studies and an active student life. Did you have time for internships or work in the field of IT or business?
— Yes, studying was quite easy for me. I had a good background at school: I participated in various competitions in mathematics and computer science. Therefore, I have developed my technical skills quite well. Thanks to this, I was able to close all IT-lectures with As.
I wanted to practice my knowledge as soon as possible. In 2018, I opened my own school of robotics for children from five years old. I made an agreement with ten kindergartens and two private schools. Unfortunately, the project had to be closed due to quarantine. Also I worked on several startup projects together with my team from the university. As usual some of startups worked, and some did not. However, I do not regret at all, because I have gained a lot of experience in various fields.
During my studies, I managed to work. I worked as a project manager at the Halyk Bank. I worked on many projects, ranging from creating an idea to the presentation and final implementation of the product. By the way, the products we worked on are still in use today. In addition, I managed to try myself as a tester of the mobile application “HomeBank”, where I worked on improving the effectiveness of the application.
ZHANARTU: How did the pandemic effect on you? 2020 has been a period of transformation for many, especially for the young generation. Everything was online. Did you manage to contribute to the fight against COVID-19?
– Yes, during the quarantine I was in my hometown of Shymkent. The situation, of course, is not brilliant. But everything happens for a certain reason – I think I was in the right place at the right time. The Akimat of the city of Shymkent was looking for ways to inform about COVID and asked the “U: projects” public organization to build an analytical platform about the situation with coronavirus.
At that moment, the founder of this organization, Tokhtar Alimbekov, found me. Small team gathered. We have developed an information system that helps to track all the data about COVID-19, where you can find out the number of people in the hospital, the number of available places in local hospitals for new patients, etc. The website is called “covid19shymkent.kz”. The development of this project took only 2 days, the website was successfully launched. This platform is still working. Thus, I was also able to partially contribute to Kazakhstan fight against COVID-19.
ZHANARTU: And what’s your future plans now?
— After successful launch of COVID-19 project, I joined the “U: projects” organization, and with the president of this association, we founded “ThePoint” venture fund. The fund includes a business incubation and acceleration program, we are engaged in startups in our region.
In November 2020, together with our team, we held an “U: hack” online festival of innovative ideas. More than 1,500 participants and more than 500 projects participated. The prize fund was 5 million tenge. As part of the festival, we selected top 20 projects and now they are undergoing an incubation program at ThePoint. To be precise, I am currently engaged in IT consulting, advising entrepreneurs and assisting to find IT-business solutions. The “Dali” digital studio is also an active business and one of my hobbies in digital design.
ZHANARTU: Your Advice to a future BISB student?
— My key advice is effective time management, try to get all possible knowledge during your studies, engage in various projects, be friends with professors and go to their office hours. In addition, I advise everyone to join student organizations, because they give you a lot of experience that will help you find a good job in the future. I wish you all to successfully complete your studies and find your dream job!
We wish Dinmukhammet good health, success in all his future endeavors and achievements!