Kazakh schoolgirls to present smart city project in Italy
Two students from the Karaganda Nazarbayev Intellectual School earned a ticket to an international hackathon in Italy to showcase a project aimed at transforming urban infrastructure. Their idea has already been recognized in Kazakhstan and is now stepping onto the global stage, Qazinform News Agency reports.
The project, developed by Yerkenaz Kazhiakhmetova and Medina Marat, focuses on analysis and planning of accessible urban environments.
The project already won acclaim at the ITECX – First Fibonacci International Congress on Engineering, Technology and Mathematics, earning a spot at the hackathon in Rome. The congress brought teams from every corner of Kazakhstan.
The students worked on the project for nearly two years, guided by teacher Gulnaz Zhomartova. According to their mentor, the project is based on the analysis of accessibility of schools, hospitals, and kindergartens using geoinformation systems. They created an interactive map of social facilities, street networks, and administrative boundaries.
The system not only records the current situation but also proposes solutions. It includes an Emergency Mode, which allows assessing ambulance arrival times, as well as a Future 2030 module that forecasts the development of urban infrastructure based on population growth.
A separate block is dedicated to transport solutions from optimizing routes to expanding bicycle lanes and pedestrian zones. The analysis also incorporates environmental factors and the needs of different population groups.
Before the international event, they plan to expand the map to other Kazakh cities and integrate machine learning for more precise analysis and forecasts.
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