ASTANA Hub

International IT and Startup Hub in Kazakhstan

In Kazakhstan, Astana Hub International IT and Startup Hub is a platform for exchanging advanced ideas. The Hub was opened in November 2018 as part of Digital Kazakhstan, fifth direction of the State Program at the initiative of the First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. Opening IT-park, Nursultan Nazarbayev noted that "Astana Hub should become a platform for attracting entrepreneurs from around the world."

Kazakhstan’s current startup ecosystem is at the initial stage of development, despite this fact it is dynamically increasing and gaining relevance. Launching Astana Hub, International IT and Startup Hub in 2018, was a turning point in development of the country’s startup scene. In terms of rankings, Startup Genome has benchmarked Nur-Sultan’s performance against more than 250 ecosystems globally in the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020. Nur-Sultan, the capital of Kazakhstan, is highlighted in the largest global report about how regions can develop thriving startup ecosystems, ranking 2 ^nd among high-growth ecosystems in Activation phase ahead of such cities as Frankfurt, Cairo, Manila, the mid-Eastern region of Ireland and others. According to the results of the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020 study, Nur-Sultan has achieved maximum Funding Growth Index value. It shows that the ecosystem of the capital overall has a high potential for further development and for increase in funding for local startups. As maintained by latest data, Kazakhstan has achieved a record high 25 ^th position in the World Bank’s Doing Business rating. In this regard, ease of doing business and support for startups are cited as additional reasons why startups should move to Kazakhstan.

Astana Hub has various startup development programs: startup school, school of investors, acceleration program and others. Today, when business education has entered the era of digital transformation, and lectures are no longer effective, workplace training becomes relevant. Accelerators not only train startups for the rapid growth of business development, but also build quality communication between the team, investors and experts.

In 2018, a group of Kazakh startups made it to the top 100 startups in Southeast Asia and spoke to venture capitalists at the largest technology platform Echelon Asia Summit in Singapore, among which are graduates of Astana Hub’s first acceleration program (Game of Drones, AILabs, KazMotors).

An important result of this work is the creation of new workplaces and production facilities by participants. When creating Astana Hub, Nursultan Nazarbayev repeatedly emphasized the importance of supporting talented young people involved in the development of IT technologies. Astana Hub actively cooperates with a number of universities, among them are Nazarbayev University, Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Faculty of Information Technologies of Kazakhstan-British Technical University and others. It gives the chance to students to use resources of hub’s ecosystem, and also to develop student startup culture. In 2019, the Technopark conducted Startup Sapary, a large-scale educational campaign. Astana Hub’s representatives visited 14 regional centers and 3 cities of national importance. More than 5.5 thousand people attended the project, most of whom are students of Kazakh universities.

Astana Hub provides opportunities for startups to pilot their solutions, interact with large local and international corporations, create favorable conditions for tech entrepreneurs thus making a positive impact on development of Kazakhstan’s innovation ecosystem.

Please visit the below website to learn more about ASTANA Hub.

https://welcome.astanahub.com/ (EN)

https://astanahub.com/ (RU)