Smart City. How modern technologies are changing Almaty today

Smart City, an acceleration program by MOST Business Intelligence, aims to find and support smart city solutions and is carried out with the assistance of the Digitalization Department of the Almaty City Akimat.

Smart city priorities:
— safety
— transport
— utilities
— education
— healthcare
— city management.

Projects that became participants of the Smart City accelerator promote startups precisely in the listed spheres. Currently, the next cohort is at the halfway point: only the most promising solutions for the city and for investors will receive their share of fame and a ticket to big business. To learn all the details, our editorial team spent a day with the participants.

At the weekly traction session, all startup participants of the program gather. They present, refine their final pitch, discuss hypotheses with trackers, and share their successes and insights about the accelerator. Notably, this includes not only the financial results achieved by the participants but also progress in developing soft skills. The outcome of the eight-week program will be a sales pitch deck, an onepager—a brief description of the project's progress for investors, which will incorporate all insights and improvements made during the program, and the coveted record of receiving investments in the cap table.

The trend toward Smart Cities exists both in Kazakhstan and globally. C4IR—the Fourth Industrial Revolution Center, which has branches in various countries around the world. In Kazakhstan, it began operations on September 1, 2021, and is based in the Tech Garden Innovation Park. The activities of Tech Garden are aimed at developing the Industry 4.0 ecosystem in Kazakhstan and implementing innovative projects at industrial enterprises in the country. In addition to the trend toward "smart" cities being evident in the goals of C4IR and its branches worldwide, this is also supported by figures. According to statistics, urbanism and improvement of the urban environment are among the trends of 2024. For startups, this is a great opportunity because they can quickly see the impact of their product on the market.

Tatiana Hasanova, Tracker

We accelerate the project so that it starts moving quickly and literally within four to five weeks, the project breaks through its personal ceiling.

In other words, the startup looks for growth points and key constraints, and then works with them. Trackers hold individual meetings with participants, helping them multiply their revenue and results. That is why the training is called acceleration.

It is important to note that in each cohort there are leaders who emerged during the acceleration: it is precisely on them that investors and the Almaty city administration will focus. As in any group dynamics, not everyone will make it to the end of the program. Survival questions lie in the realm of the business model and PMF. Some startups will revise their strategies and draw useful lessons. This is exactly why MOST creates a safe environment where the project's potential is maximized and revealed in a short period. And then, the startup that has reached a new level can either continue to grow or consolidate at its current point, from where it will make a new leap.

The Demo Day will take place in early June, and not everyone will make it to that stage. Usually, the decision to exit the program is made mutually by both parties. The completion rate of projects to the final stage in the Smart City acceleration is the highest because participants are prepared and create useful solutions for the city in various spheres. We spoke with some of them about the program, their projects, and plans.

Zhanat Turgumbaev, founder of the sports travel agency 4LMNTS, which helps amateur runners participate in the largest international marathons

We work with world major marathons, taking amateur runners to large marathons, and abroad we are the official travel agency for the London Marathon in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. I just returned from London, where we took 30 people. They ran the marathon and were very satisfied. I, by the way, also participated. I think that in order to sell something, you need to have expertise in it yourself. Therefore, I run every marathon and am a customer of my own product. Thanks to experience, I can tell my buyer in detail what is best for them to choose, what difficulties there will be, and so on. We have signed a contract with the organizers of the London Marathon for next year. We will represent their interests in 2025 as well.

I came to the accelerator because I realized that our project could grow quickly if we were within the framework of the accelerator. After all, trackers are assigned to you who monitor your growth and do not allow you to relax at any stage. Thus, in just four weeks, we connected payments, I found a team, got the website up and running, and already started getting cool contracts. Before the acceleration program, we were already actively selling. We have been working in the market for about two years, but we wanted to go online and connect payments. Previously, we only sold offline. If you are engaged in some business, you must dedicate 100% of your time to it for the project to take off. Therefore, when you enter the accelerator, you must devote all your time to your product, focusing on achieving results. The program is short, and during this time, you need to manage to achieve results.

Igor Zabolotskikh, Sergey Kim, and Nikita Oleynik, co-founders of the Resortix startup

Igor. We came to MOST at the Product Market Fit stage, where we already had several active clients and negotiations with representatives of the foreign market.

Resortix is a customer experience management system within ski resorts. Using a super-app for the location, resort guests can easily and cheaply purchase or book services, as well as navigate on-site.

At some point, we realized that the product brings value and it was time to think not only about scaling it but also about a fresh view on monetization and developing functionality. However, we had never gone down the startup path, so we did not understand how venture capital and its scaling tools work, how they differ from offers from traditional financial institutions or close well-wishers. Thanks to our colleagues at MOST, we gained more confidence in ourselves and our product, and also understood that reaching the next milestones of our startup's development can and should be done much faster than originally planned.

Ruslana Pisarenko, founder of the Wunder school and academy

I am a psychologist by education and a mother of four children. I had a period when my children and I tried two private schools, but nothing suited us. So I took them for home schooling, and that is where our experience began. Then, simply, we lacked communication, so we joined forces with like-minded people and created Wunder Academy. This year, our school is three years old, it is 100% full, and we have a large waiting list. The problem is that there are no suitable buildings that meet sanitary standards required by schools. Therefore, our path is construction, which is currently additionally funded by the state. This is beneficial for both us and the investor.

I participated in the acceleration program because I previously had some experience participating in a similar accelerator and interacting with Tatiana. I knew that it provides significant growth. At the accelerator, we worked on one of our small projects, Wunder—a business incubator for children and teenagers, where we teach them to launch their own small projects. It is also oriented towards career guidance for teenagers. We plan to launch a trial program in a summer format and then adapt it for the academic year so that it becomes part of our educational program, to graduate small businessmen from the school with their own businesses. Kind of a Kinder MOST.

In four weeks, I saw how much my environment and pace changed: they do not let us relax so that we concentrate on the result. I received many answers to questions I had regarding management, leadership, and interaction with staff. And now I am actively applying this. In addition, the quality of my public speaking has improved due to presentations to each other. It seems like a very simple step, but it significantly boosts public speaking skills.

Tair Kozhakhmetov, founder of Aula.kz, a digital ecosystem around the home

It was necessary to gain knowledge for scaling our project, so we joined the acceleration program. At that time, our startup was at the Product Market Fit stage. By the halfway point, I can say that we already have signed contracts in hand.

Smart city is the most promising direction in the field of startup and innovation development: more than 6.3 billion people will live in cities and urban agglomerations by 2050. Now, innovators and urban heroes have a chance to create a truly important and necessary solution, and such programs are created precisely for them. For those who also want to participate in this program, get ready: in July, MOST Business Incubator will conduct a new cohort of the acceleration program!