Astana Hub has every opportunity to become the 2nd Silicon Valley-expert view

26 December, 2018 15:05

Today innovation and technology play one of the important role in country’s development. The states attract many ideas and much money for this. Start-ups are now gaining momentum. There are a lot of interesting start-ups in the world and in our country. Dr. Alexander Gelsin, Managing Partner at bee smart city GmbH, holding his PhD in astrophysics from the University of Heidelberg (Germany), jury member of Intelligent Community Forum gave was interviewed and told about the main trends in the technology development. Read more in the exclusive material of the Stratgy2050.kz Information Agency.

- What kind of innovations in technology, trends are popular now?

- In my opinion, there are two major technologies which are involving at the moment. One of them is a blockchain. I think the blockchain might be the future also for several questions like trust generation or interaction between the people. The second thing is artificial intelligence. AI is reaching all areas in our life because it’s really substitutes many tasks and it expands quite fast. I think it’s important to focus on this technology. These two trends are really emerging and now it’s up to us to bring them to the cities, to the citizens, to make it a good place for all to live.

- Do you help start any kind of technology companies?

- We have economic development units. Each city has its own economic development unit and they are fostering innovation. They are supporting start-ups, they are organizing acceleration hubs, all kind of things.

- You know some Kazakh start-ups. On that basis, in your opinion, does Kazakhstan have any potential? Astana Hub is going to become the second Silicon Valley. Does it have this opportunity?

- I saw some Kazakh start-ups and I know the national agency for technology development. And I hope it will do great job to foster this. I think each country has a chance to have a great ecosystem of start-ups. So, yes, I see potential.

- Can you list some countries that go ahead with technology development? And countries which leave off. How can innovation be developed faster in Kazakhstan?

- That’s a tough question. We see, of course, America, aheading forward with the innovation. It has Silicon Valley you’ve mentioned. They are developing technology very frequently but other countries make use of this technologies like the Netherlands or Scandinavian countries. I also know Asia doing a lot of development at the moment. Probably, if you ask who is far behind it’s really difficult to say to me because I’m not an expert for every country. I think Kazakhstan just needs to focus on education, needs to give room for thoughts, for ideas to young people who don’t have. If they are too much bother to earn the verges they cannot be innovative. So, you have to give them the chance to be innovative, to try out things. And you need to have the economy for this and to allow to finance such projects.

Saltanat Sarina

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