Fund of development of infocommunication technologies of Kazakhstan

The fund of development of infocommunication technologies (ICT) is created on June 26, 2012 on an initiative and with assistance of Ministry of Transport and Communications of RK, "National infocommunication Holding "Zerde" and the largest Kazakhstan communication companies: JSC Kazakhtelecom, Kar-Tel LLP and JSC Kcell.

The purpose of Fund consists in formation of the innovation entrepreneurship and improving competitiveness of the ICT industry of Kazakhstan.

Activities

In 2013 and 2014 the Fund keeps two main projects:

• acceleration a startup projects in the field of ICT and
• holding International Forum ASTEX (Astana Smart Technologies Exhibition).

Support of startups

At the beginning of 2013 it was reported that the fund will put investments into a startup projects at the earliest stage, to give expert support, to provide with necessary infrastructure, to help with search of partners and investors for further scaling.

In September, 2013 it was reported that for financing of perspective projects in the field of the Internet and telecommunications three large Kazakhstan operators of JSC Kazakhtelecom, JSC Kcell and KAR-Tel LLP - will deposit funds in fund, independently determining the sizes of contributions, and the deposit THEM "Zerde" consists in organization of fund^[1].

Projects will be financed from approval of board of operators and independent experts. The planned amount of financing of each project — from 20 to 50 thousand dollars. According to Sanjar Kettebekov, this money is enough for creation of the company, development of a business model and prototypes of the project which in the future will be able to attract the capital. In a year the fund assumes financing of 12-15 projects. In a zone of interests of holding there are projects on logistics, transport, oil processing, housing and public utilities, telemedicine. Will not ignore also electronic trading and also preserving and data analysis.

As Kettebekov noted, there is practically no market of information technologies outside operators as such that is unprofitable to operators as the potential of colloquial cellular communication in Kazakhstan is exhausted. Now the companies incline to building date traffic that it is also difficult in the conditions of backwardness of the Kazakhstan content. For this reason operators will support projects which will promote growth of data transmission and will be able to attract the capital.

Heads of fund

CEOs of fund:

• 2012-2013 – Kuandykov Aybol Abuyevich
• since September, 2013 - Kettebekov Sanjar

History

In September, 2013 Kettebekov Sanjar became the CEO of fund.

Notes