The year 2026 has been declared the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in Kazakhstan. According to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the country faces a large-scale goal - to to implement advanced technologies and artificial intelligence across all areas of life. The head of state has also emphasized that digitalization and bureaucracy are incompatible, and that work must be restructured without relying on outdated approaches.
At the same time, it is important to note that in recent years Kazakhstan has seen significant progress not only in technology overall, but also in EdTech. Many platforms have emerged that automate processes and increase transparency in education. One such example is the services of the IT holding Bilim Group, which make learning more effective and personalized, reduce routine workload for teachers, and even help prevent corruption. We spoke with the company’s product leaders about how they entered IT, why they chose EdTech, and how their solutions are shaping the education system.
Reducing teachers’ workload, not increasing it
Zaure Manap became interested in EdTech while still at university. As part of her thesis, she developed a program that helped people learn complex alphabets of languages that do not use Cyrillic or Latin scripts. Despite her passion for educational technologies, after graduation she tried herself in other areas of IT, but soon realized that what truly inspired her was the mission of EdTech - expanding access to quality education.
Today, Zaure works as a product manager at BilimCenter, a platform focused on developing students’ functional literacy. It helps prepare them for both international and national exams and assessments, including MODO, OZNO, TIMSS, PISA, and PIRLS. Students practice, learn exam formats, study materials, and then take mock tests. Schools receive automated reports, track the progress of each student or class, and immediately understand where improvements are needed.
“My perception of school changed completely after I started working on the product - figuratively speaking, I took off my rose-colored glasses. I conduct research, which means I talk a lot with teachers and methodologists from education departments. You begin to realize how much responsibility lies on one teacher - teaching, paperwork, reporting. Unfortunately, people outside often think it’s simple: prepare for a lesson and teach. But if you look deeper, you see how much teachers actually do every day. Our main goal is to reduce their routine workload, not add more to it,” Zaure explains.
For young professionals who want to build products in education, she advises not to be afraid to try. Many graduates believe that without experience they must continue studying, but Zaure believes it is important to take on any projects, develop skills, and learn from different materials.
“Today, many products share their cases, and there is a huge amount of accessible information - you just need to dive into it and apply it in practice. If I see something new, I try to implement it immediately instead of waiting for the perfect moment. It will never come. You will never feel fully ready, so you just have to start now,” she concludes.
Starting from real problems
Ermek Kamenov has been working in technology since 2013. He began in a chain of communication stores and later worked in several IT companies. In April 2018, he joined Bilim Group as the head of the SmartNation product, which at the time was just being developed.
What started as a small solution for enrolling children in kindergartens and schools, as well as hiring teachers, has grown into a large ecosystem covering 16 regions and three cities of republican significance in Kazakhstan. Today, SmartNation automates processes in preschool, secondary, and additional education, as well as colleges, certification, accounting, and document management.
According to Ermek Kamenov, his team always starts from real challenges faced by teachers and parents and finds solutions through information technology. For example, the platform helps eliminate unfair hiring practices and non-transparent enrollment of children into schools and kindergartens.
“When we started developing SmartNation, we were influenced by a high-profile case in 2018 where a teacher was asked for a bribe of 1.5 million tenge to get a job, while the salary was only 154 thousand. We paid attention to this and decided to make the hiring process fully transparent transparent and fair, so that no one could influence the final decision from the outside. We aimed for the same standards in our school and kindergarten enrollment systems,” recalls Ermek Kamenov.
At the same time, the ecosystem helps government bodies by reducing overload and managing large flows of people through process optimization. He believes that if a system is difficult to interact with, there are always underlying issues that must be addressed first. For instance, if methodologists face difficulties organizing processes, the team does not just record the issue but identifies its root cause and develops a concrete solution.
For those entering the IT field, he advises maintaining motivation to learn and not assuming you already know everything. Information updates rapidly, and it is easy to fall behind. He also emphasizes the importance of a positive mindset - any challenge can be overcome if you don’t prepare yourself for failure in advance.
“I would like to look 20 years into the future of education. I believe learning will become hybrid - combining traditional and online formats. The world is changing very fast, more processes are moving into the digital space, and even socialization is becoming increasingly online. I see the future as more flexible, more digital, and less tied to a specific location,” he says.
Transparent data and quality analytics for the education system
Farkhat Usen’s path differs from the others, as he had no IT background before joining Bilim Group. Today, he is a Lead Product Manager at BilimClass - an electronic diary system with educational content and school administration tools. He is responsible for the entire product: feature development, service quality in schools, user training, launching new regions, support services, task distribution, and overall team coordination.
Currently, BilimClass is used by 350,000 teachers and 2.5 million students across 12 regions of Kazakhstan.
“One of our key principles is reducing routine for teachers. In my opinion, teachers currently spend too much time on bureaucratic tasks. That is why we aim to free them from paperwork as much as possible, so they can focus more on students and the learning process. Another major goal is to provide the education system with transparent data and high-quality analytics. This allows us to quickly identify where problems arise - in a specific school or region - and respond in a timely manner,” explains Farkhat Usen.
As advice to young professionals, he highlights the importance of flexibility and the ability to multitask in EdTech and IT in general. Since BilimClass is used in schools, urgent issues often arise that must be resolved quickly. However, if you understand the nature of the work in advance, it becomes part of the normal workflow and does not lead to burnout.
“I believe it’s important to have a purpose. When you understand why you are doing your work, it becomes easier to handle the workload. What motivates me most is the scale of the product and the understanding that we can truly make a positive impact on the learning process. BilimClass is a tool that brings real value to schools and the entire education system of Kazakhstan. That realization is what inspires me,” Farkhat Usen concludes.
