Meruert Bizhanova
Profile
A graduate of Nazarbayev Intellectual School in Aktau, Teaching Fellow and doctoral student at the University of Oxford. She previously served as President of the Student Assembly. She studied at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), where she became the first Kazakhstani recipient of the prestigious Penn Global Student Citizenship Award.
• At the age of 24, became a doctoral student and Teaching Fellow at the University of Oxford, one of the world’s leading universities.
• The first Kazakhstani to receive the Penn Global Student Citizenship Award in the 284-year history of the University of Pennsylvania.
• Served as President of the Graduate & Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA), representing the interests of more than 20,000 graduate and professional students at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Recipient of several prestigious international awards for academic leadership and contributions to the development of higher education.
• Represents Kazakhstan on the global academic stage, advancing research in higher education and international education policy.
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Kuanysh Maden
How Movie Posters Are Made Three designers explain the ideas behind posters for Oscar-winning and Kazakhstani films The Oscars do not have a category for “Best Movie Poster,” nor do they have a category for “Best Title Sequence,” which was included at the very first ceremony in 1929 but disappeared as early as 1930. That is why, in 2025, we decided to conduct an experiment: we provided Kazakhstani designers with all the posters of the films nominated for the 2025 Oscars and asked them to choose the best ones. Creating a poster is an art of conveying an entire film universe through a single visual image. A successful poster becomes part of the film’s history and stays with us long after we leave the cinema. As designer Kuanysh Maden, who worked on posters for the films “My Name is Kozha,” “Patrol,” and “Shulamah,” notes, the process of creating them often takes place under tight deadlines and with limited resources. “Quite often, you have to build posters from screenshots because filming ended a long time ago. Improving image quality and adding effects takes a lot of time,” he says. Asem Ramazanova, who created posters for “Mergen,” “The Black, Black Man,” and “Summer of 1941,” draws attention to the role of typography: “A font is not just text; it is an important element of visual style. In Western movie posters, you can notice a trend toward experimental, handwritten, or minimalist typefaces that help convey the mood of a film.” Igor Yug, the author of posters for “Taraz,” “Yolki 8,” and “Zhauap Ber,” speaks about the main approach used by Kazakhstani movie designers: “It is important that the viewer immediately understands the genre of the film and feels its emotion. In Kazakhstan, posters are more often focused on recognizability: large portraits of actors and an easily understandable color scheme.” While the global film industry continues to embrace complex compositions with numerous details, depth, and expressive visual techniques, Kazakhstan tends to favor simplicity and clarity.
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Kamila Saken
Founder of WeGlobal AI, a Kazakhstan-based EDTECH startup that uses artificial intelligence to identify high-risk teenagers in schools and automate psychological and academic support for students. The project aims to expand across schools throughout Kazakhstan and eventually enter the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We See More Than a School: How AI Helps Identify At-Risk Teenagers At Digital Bridge 2025, the Kazakhstan-developed WeGlobal AI platform was presented during the final stage of Astana Hub Battle. The platform combines psychological and academic support for school students, helping identify teenagers experiencing depression or a crisis at an early stage. According to co-founder Kamila Saken, the idea for the startup was inspired by a real-life case. At a small school, a 15-year-old student named Aruzhan appeared no different from her peers on the outside. However, she was suffering from severe depression and had even made suicide attempts. Neither the teachers nor the school psychologist knew about her condition. Like psychologists in many educational institutions, the school counselor was responsible for hundreds of students at the same time. The problem was identified only after the platform was introduced. The school psychologist noticed warning signs and invited the girl for a conversation, during which they discovered scars on her wrist. “In just one district where we operate, the system identified 539 students with severe depression whom the schools had no idea about,” Kamila emphasized. The WeGlobal AI platform works through a mobile application provided to students after their school subscribes to the service. Students complete psychological assessments, share their educational plans, and report academic difficulties. The system analyzes this data and generates recommendations for educators, helping identify students who may need additional support. At the same time, much of the administrative and paperwork burden is automated. The startup also offers additional educational products through its academic platform, including English-language courses and preparation programs for university admission and the SAT. This upselling mechanism has become a key part of the startup’s business model. According to the startup, its own online school currently generates approximately $330,000 per month, while a recent offline event for subscribed schools in Almaty generated an additional $42,000, with a 22% conversion rate. Operating since late 2023, the startup began in Kazakhstan and increased the number of its school clients from 8 to 800 within one year. The team’s next goal is to expand into the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, where the potential market is estimated at $2 billion. “We want not only to identify children who are at risk, but also to build an entire support ecosystem where teenagers have the tools they need for both psychological well-being and academic growth,” Kamila added.
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Dias Kozhantayev
Creative Producer at Warner Bros. Discovery, creating viral video content for Max and Eurosport. In 2025, three of his projects were nominated for the GEMA Awards. He is also active as an actor and appeared in Dune: Part Two.
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