IQanat School in Borovoye

In February of this year, together with another leading Kazakh businessman, Aidyn Rakhimbayev, we opened a new campus of the IQanat School in Borovoye, called the Freedom House. I supported this project, knowing that thanks to it, the dreams of thousands of rural children who want to study and change our country for the better will come true.
In previous posts, I’ve talked about the immense potential for community impact this building has and its functionality. I am very pleased to report that on June 20th, together with other trustees of the IQanat Project, we learned the names of children who, thanks to their victory in the Republic Olympiad IQanat, will sit at the school desks in Borovoye, including the Freedom House campus, in September. These are the 100 best schoolchildren who went through several stages of academic testing and turned out to be the best among thousands in their age category across the country. Most of these children are from socially vulnerable families.
In fact, over the 5 years that I have been associated with this project, it has consistently exceeded our expectations of success. We are witnessing a real miracle: in addition to academic learning, children are given hope and motivation as well as access to activities not typically within reach of their communities. As an example, a recent trip to the world's largest high-mountain-altitude skating rink, Medeu, was also coupled with educational training, organizational meetings, and preparation courses for the Kazakhstan Unified National Testing (UNT) exams and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) tests. To put this in perspective, most of these kids have never traveled outside their village. 70%-80% of them are from low-income large or single-parent families and the IQanat team delivered to them an experience that they will not soon forget, and neither will I.
In joining these kids at Medeu I was once again convinced that Kazakhstan is a very young nation; our average age is just over 30 and almost a third of the population are children under 15. In many ways, it’s very cool for me to be part of this mix because I get to witness the world change not from year to year, but from day to day, as I watch these kids become able to participate in new solutions, new professions, and entirely new industries that are soon emerging. Under these conditions, countries with citizens who are able to master new skills, effectively apply advanced knowledge, and have progressive views with a focus the future, will prosper. I am certain that Kazakhstan will be one of these countries because I had the opportunity to meet our leaders of tomorrow amongst these schoolchildren. For me, and for Kazakh society, this kind of return on investment in the IQanat School project is priceless.