IT community from Central Asia: NU ACM-Women SC

We continue to introduce you to IT communities in Central Asia that develop and support the industry. Today, we will tell you about one of the communities at Nazarbayev University — NU ACM-Women SC. Read more in our article!

Dilnaz Rakhmankulova, city — Astana, Chair of ACM & ACM-W Student Chapters at Nazarbayev University

About the community

NU ACM & ACM-Women Student Chapters are two subdivisions of the student branch of the international organization Association for Computing Machinery at Nazarbayev University. We began our activities in 2017 and have remained the first and only official ACM and ACM-W branch in Kazakhstan since then.

Our goal is to provide every student interested in computer science and programming with the best opportunities for learning and professional growth. We regularly organize programming competitions, hackathons, seminars, and workshops in both closed formats at the university level and open formats for participants from across the country.

NU ACM-Women SC is an ACM subdivision focused on supporting women in STEM. We strive to ensure social and professional support for women and contribute to their technical development by organizing various events.

Key tasks of our community:

1. Promotion of computer science — conducting lectures, seminars, and workshops so that more students can deepen their knowledge in programming and other IT fields.
2. Practical development — organizing hackathons, competitions, and projects that allow participants to apply their skills in practice.
3. Support for women in STEM — conducting events aimed at supporting women in the technology sector and creating a comfortable community for sharing experiences.
4. Networking and career growth — establishing connections with the industry, attracting speakers from leading IT companies, and helping students find internships and job opportunities.

Community members

The target audience of our community consists of students and school students interested in computer science, programming, and technology. We strive to create an educational and professional environment that helps participants develop technical skills and gain new opportunities.

Only students of Nazarbayev University can join our community, as we are an official student organization founded at NU. However, our open events, such as competitions, hackathons, and seminars, are available to a wide audience — students and school students from across the country.

Events for community members

In addition to closed events at the university level, we annually organize large-scale events for students and school students from across the country. Among them:

1. NUOpen — a competitive programming competition in the ICPC style, the International Collegiate Programming Contest, where participants in teams of one to three people solve algorithmic problems against time.
   
2. HackNU — a 24-hour programming marathon, or hackathon, during which participants — programmers, designers, managers, and other software development specialists — form teams and work on solving real-world problems. The mission of the hackathon is to give students the opportunity to challenge themselves and improve their skills.

Also, on behalf of ACM-W, we annually conduct initiatives aimed at supporting and engaging women in IT:

1. Women's Hack Day — a team competition consisting of three rounds, where participants solve problems in product design, mathematics, and competitive programming.
   
2. CodeW — a programming competition for women with three difficulty levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Participants solve problems within a track corresponding to their skill level.
   
3. Code Girl Summer — an offline web development camp for women aged 15 to 18, held on the university campus. Participants are offered to choose one of two directions: frontend or backend.

How the community helps with development

Our community creates a favorable environment for the comprehensive development of students — both professionally and personally.

1. Professional development: we regularly hold technical events — programming competitions, hackathons, workshops, lectures, and seminars, which allow participants to deepen their knowledge and apply it in practice. Through interaction with industry experts and alumni, participants gain insight into real career paths and can find mentors, internships, and job opportunities.

2. Soft skills development: participation in team competitions and event organization develops communication, time management, leadership, and teamwork skills.

3. Support and community: especially within ACM-W, we create a supportive space where women feel confident and are inspired by communicating with like-minded individuals and role models.

Successful projects

Our community receives sponsorship support from both Kazakhstani and international companies. Our events have been supported by companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Palantir, Jane Street, EPAM, Lerna, Umag, Zapiz.kz, BTS Digital, Huawei, Beeline, EY, Stripe, Kolesa Group, Aviata, and Choco.

One of the bright examples of collaboration this year was the generative AI hackathon, which we organized this year jointly with ISSAI, the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence. Participants worked with local AI models developed by ISSAI — KAZ-LLM and the Soyle App application, giving them a unique opportunity to apply their skills in working with advanced technologies.

Overall, our events annually bring together more than 1,000 participants from all over Kazakhstan, and the total prize fund exceeds 5 million tenge, making NU ACM & ACM-W one of the largest student technical communities in the country.

Plans

At the moment, we are actively preparing for our annual hackathon — HackNU. Teams of two to four people participate in it. This is one of our largest and most anticipated events, which brings together talented students and high school students aged 16 and above from all over Kazakhstan.

The event will take place on the campus of Nazarbayev University and will be open to all interested parties. In the near future, we will publish an official announcement with registration details.

Contacts for those who want to join the community or propose collaboration:

Email: acmsc@nu.edu.kz — ACM SC, acm_w@nu.edu.kz — ACM-W SC
Telegram and Instagram: @nuacmsc — ACM SC, @nuacm_wsc — ACM-W SC.