On June 9, the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI) officially launched its Summer Research Program (SRP) 2025 for high school students. The program will run from June 9 to July 12 at ISSAI, offering an immersive educational experience in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Programming and related fields.
The opening ceremony was marked by inspiring speech from Founding director of ISSAI Dr. Atakan Varol. Dr. Varol welcomed the students and shared words of encouragement as they embarked on this journey. Executive Director Yerbol Abssalyamov provided an overview of ISSAI’s mission and its cutting-edge research initiatives. Senior PR Manager Aliya Tussupova introduced the program in detail, highlighting the exciting opportunities that await the participants.
This year’s SRP is structured around two core components: Theory and Practice.
Theoretical master-classes led by ISSAI’s leading data scientists on topics such as: “Language Models and Vision-Language Models: How to Evaluate Them,” “Rapid Generative AI Deployment using Gradio,” “Model Quantization: What Is It and How to Do It?”, “Computer Vision Basics,” and “Image Generation with Diffusion Models, ControlNet, and Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning”. As part of the program, the first week will consist of intensive lectures, mentor-led tracks, where students will receive in-depth guidance from experts and choose one of the following research directions: Dr. Zhanat Makhataeva – “Augmented Reality. Avatars”, Dr. Azamat Yeshmukhametov – “Robotics”, MLOps Engineer Rassul Yermagambet – “Python and DevOps”, Researcher Anuar Aryngazin – “Advanced AI”.
Following a week of intensive lectures, students will select their preferred track and Supervising Mentor and begin a four-week hands-on research experience, working closely with mentors, exploring current ISSAI projects, and even initiating their own.
This year, ISSAI received an outstanding 325 applications from high school students across Kazakhstan. After a highly competitive selection process, 41 students were accepted into the program. Participants represent schools such as BIL, NSPM, NIS, Astana Garden School, Haileybury, Quantum, and others. Each student brings a remarkable academic background, with achievements ranging from active AI projects to international awards in mathematics, informatics, and robotics.
We wish all participants a fruitful and inspiring summer ahead!
Stay tuned for more information about on-going SRP 2025 on our Social media pages: Instagram, Youtube and Linkedin.