Akram Rakhmetulla is currently a second-year Computer Science student at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology) in Daejeon, South Korea. He came to Kazakhstan for a winter break and decided to devote his time to an internship at ISSAI, where he aims to enhance his skills and broaden his professional experience. To learn more about his internship experience at ISSAI, we conducted a brief interview with Akram.
– Why did you choose ISSAI for your internship?
– ISSAI is a young and innovative institute dedicated to advancing AI research in Kazakhstan. The opportunity to contribute to AI development for my country was both exciting and meaningful to me, which is why I was eager to join the institute.
– What new experiences did you have at ISSAI?
-At ISSAI, I gained valuable experience in data processing, computer networks, and system programming. While working with a powerful hardware stack—including 256 GB of RAM and the latest AMD Threadripper 48-thread CPUs—I had the opportunity to experiment with high-performance computing resources. This allowed me to optimize data processing workflows and gain hands-on experience with various language models and computer vision models, such as HuggingFace transformers and OpenAI models.
– Which project did you find both interesting and challenging to work on?
-One of the most interesting projects I worked on was creating, collecting, and optimizing datasets for the recently released language-vision model of ISSAI named Oylan. This project required efficient data handling and processing techniques, as well as a deep understanding of system performance optimization. Experimenting with advanced hardware and accelerating data workflows made this project both exciting and technically demanding.
– Would you recommend other students and professionals to do an internship and conduct research at ISSAI?
– Absolutely. ISSAI is rapidly growing and making a significant impact in AI research and development. The institute provides a great environment and offers various opportunities, such as Summer Research Program, where interns can work on real-world projects under the guidance of experienced researchers. Kazakhstani youth is very lucky to have a top-notch aI research institute in Kazakhstan.
– What will you miss about ISSAI?
– I will definitely miss the atmosphere and my amazing workplace. Working alongside passionate professionals and being part of exciting projects made this experience truly memorable.