From January 31 to February 1, 2025, the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI) team participated in the Digital Almaty 2025 forum. The team, including Founding Director, Prof. Atakan Varol, Executive Director Yerbol Absalyamov, Lead Data Scientist Askat Kuzdeuov, Data Scientists Rakhat Meiramov and Ulzhan Bissarinova, Product Manager Aikerim Bissarinova, Senior PR Manager Aliya Mukhidinova, and Social Media Manager Aida Kaliyeva, presented significant projects of the Institute.
ISSAI’s dense booth attracted a diverse audience of experts, international guests, developers, students, and AI enthusiasts. ISSAI exhibition focused on the demonstration of the Soyle App, a multifunctional application for speech recognition, voice synthesis, and text and speech translation capabilities in Kazakh, Russian, English, and Turkish, as well as Oylan, a powerful generative AI model that can process images and substantially surpass text processing capabilities of ISSAI’s former language model KAZ-LLM.
Discussions spanned the applications of the Soyle App, Oylan, and other ISSAI innovations, exploring potential solutions for the banking, education, industry, and B2B and B2C markets.
Guests actively engaged with the demonstrations, with notable attendees like Yuji Beleza, a popular Japanese blogger with more than 4 million followers on Instagram and TikTok. As a big fan of the Kazakh language and culture, Yuji participated enthusiastically in the Soyle App demonstration, especially appreciating its translation and voice-over capabilities, and expressed his intention to recommend it to his followers.
On the second day, the ISSAI booth continued to draw significant attention from numerous visitors, including representatives from QazaqGas, Tengizchevroil, Kazakhtelecom, Samruk Kazyna, and the Telecommunication Company of Iran, among others. Distinguished guest Professor Emeritus Koichi Koganezawa from Tokai University commended the high quality of the Oylan model and expressed best wishes to the ISSAI team.
Throughout the forum, the ISSAI team received valuable feedback, identifying areas for enhancement in Soyle App and Oylan. The event underscored the genuine interest in ISSAI’s projects, with many attendees present specifically to learn about the Institute’s innovations and engage with the team.
ISSAI remains committed to advancing artificial intelligence in Kazakhstan and will strive to create groundbreaking AI models using local intellectual talent despite lack of research funds for this field.