Aisha Orymbayeva

Kazakhstani entrepreneur and founder of Element programming school. She opened her first branch at the age of 20 and was named to Forbes Kazakhstan’s “30 Under 30” list in the Education category.

Aisha Orymbayeva’s schools operate in Aktobe, Atyrau, Aktau, Shymkent, Pavlodar, Oral, Nur-Sultan and Almaty.

Aisha Orymbayeva, a 23-year-old honoree of Forbes Kazakhstan’s “30 Under 30” ranking, was born into an ordinary family in Taraz: her mother was a schoolteacher, while her father was an entrepreneur. After enrolling at a local Nazarbayev Intellectual School, Aisha immediately planned to move to Almaty, continue her education at Suleyman Demirel University and eventually pursue programming. At some point, however, she began wondering why children in Kazakhstan were not taught programming from an early age, despite it being such a promising field.

The idea stayed with her for a long time. By her third year at SDU, Aisha decided to launch her own programming school, Element. Too ambitious? Today, schools under the Element name operate in Aktobe, Atyrau, Aktau, Shymkent, Pavlodar, Oral, Nur-Sultan and Almaty. Before the pandemic, they served around 500 students, while the monthly revenue of each school ranged from 750,000 to 2 million tenge. After the pandemic caused revenues to fall by almost three times, it became clear that the existing business model of offline schools would inevitably have to transform.

Learning from Experience

While studying at university, Aisha worked part-time for three months at the programming school Love to Code. There, she studied the educational methodologies used by similar schools. Her experience at Nazarbayev Intellectual School also proved valuable when creating Element, as Aisha became a strong advocate of the Cambridge teaching methodology.

Armed with this knowledge, in October 2017, 20-year-old Aisha registered her company and began developing the school’s educational and methodological foundation in preparation for the official launch.

The project officially began operating in February 2018.

“My very first clients were two girls whom I taught on weekends. Every week, the number of students doubled — all thanks to advertising on Instagram. At the time, parents were not particularly familiar with programming schools, so they became interested in Element’s offer. Within a few months, the number of students reached 40, and we started renting our own office,” Aisha recalls.

At first, she taught the classes herself. A little later, several of her university classmates joined the team.

In September of the same year, Aisha decided to improve her SMM skills in order to reach more potential customers through social media, so she enrolled in a specialized course. Each participant talked about their project and how they planned to develop it. After hearing Aisha speak about Element, one of the women in the audience became interested in the project. After the class, she approached Aisha and asked whether she would consider opening a school in Pavlodar.

Without giving it much thought, Aisha replied:

“Maybe you could buy a franchise? I don’t have any contacts in Pavlodar or the opportunity to travel there and launch a school myself.”

“At that time, I had absolutely no experience in franchising. I didn’t know how to sell a franchise or what terms to offer,” Aisha laughs.

She invited her new acquaintance to the Almaty office, showed her the school and explained the business model. They then reached an agreement, and the first franchise was sold to Pavlodar for 2 million tenge.

“Only later did I realize how much work was ahead of me — bringing in lawyers and franchising specialists, packaging the project properly and handling the launch and implementation,” Aisha admits.

According to her, she never tried to persuade anyone to buy a franchise. The key factor was that people could see how passionate the founder was about popularizing programming among children.

“For example, my partner in Aktobe says she joined the project mainly because of me. But there were also people who simply liked the business model itself,” Aisha says.

Over two years, nine franchises were sold in different cities across Kazakhstan.

Moving Online

Today, Element’s schools have significantly fewer students than they did during the summer.

“Our schools in Shymkent, Oral and Pavlodar closed until next year because of the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic,” Aisha says with a sigh. “The devaluation of the tenge also reduced people’s purchasing power. Clients started saying, ‘We want to study, but later, when all of this is over.’”

Franchise sales were also put on hold.

“This is partly because we are now moving completely online and our entire team is focused on that. We want to change our business model. First of all, this is obviously driven by the pandemic, but we also want to stay on top of the trend. From a business perspective, it is a powerful way to scale not only across Kazakhstan but also into other countries,” Aisha explains.

To gradually restore the business, Element schools give customers a choice: remain offline where possible or switch to online learning. According to Aisha, she planned to close the Almaty offline school that year and focus entirely on moving online, while her franchise partners planned to open a new school in Almaty starting in 2021.

The team’s previous work on automating educational processes and building its own online platform proved particularly valuable in this transition.

Software Created by Children

“Our children don’t play games — they create them themselves” is the slogan displayed in large letters on the homepage of the Element online platform.

According to Aisha, her main mission is to create a platform for children in Kazakhstan where they can acquire the IT skills they need and eventually become competitive in the international job market.

Learning through the platform allows children not only to gain basic knowledge of computer science but also to expand their skills in mathematics and English. In addition, teachers help students build portfolios of projects for university applications.

The Element online school offers nine learning packages in total. The youngest students, aged five to seven, can learn programming through LightBot. Children aged six to 15 can explore robotics, create games using the visual programming language Scratch, program in Minecraft, and solve more than 400 logic and mathematics problems on CodeMonkey.

Older students study Python and JavaScript, build websites and create Android applications. Each student has a personal account and an individualized learning program, while teachers are available to answer any questions.

One of the key features of the Element platform is that the learning process is based on gamification — the use of game mechanics in non-game contexts. The approach incorporates elements such as goal-setting, feedback, levels and creativity.

Experience has shown that this approach can significantly improve the effectiveness of the educational process. For example, students receive points for every completed course, and accumulated points can be exchanged for the platform’s internal currency, “terrabucks.” These can later be used to purchase useful toys or even gadgets.