At the end of August, NSU’s Alumni Association «NSU Union» together with the Institute of Mathematical Modeling at the Committee of Science from the Ministry of Education and Science Republic of Kazakhstan, held a conference for NSU Alumni in Almaty for the first time. Aigul Sainova, a 1987 graduate of the NSU Mechanics and Mathematics Department and currently General Director of the international investment and consulting company «Kairos Advice AG» that is headquartered in Switzerland, flew especially to this meeting from Paris and was invited to become an NSU ambassador first in Switzerland, and then in Europe.
Sainova talked about this opportunity:
– When I found out that a meeting of graduates was being planned in Kazakhstan, I offered to help the organizers because I know many NSUshiks personally. However, everything was already prepared for the Conference so they suggested I become an NSU ambassador to contribute to the development of business contacts and friendly relations between graduates first in Switzerland, and then in Europe as a whole. We still have to study the documents but it seems interesting and, in general, I think the idea is quite viable. There are some things the University can help us with, but we can also help the University. For example, we can invite students and graduates to conferences in Europe, involve our students in projects, our graduates can come and read lectures at the University. As head of an investment company, I am ready to help students implement interesting investment projects.
Sainova admitted that she has no experience working with students or recent graduates since her company deals with projects worth 50 million euros and young people, as a rule, do not yet have such large-scale ideas. However, recently Aigul studied her daughter’s business plan after she graduated from Manchester University:
– The project is small, but absolutely real and classy. So, I'll start with my own child. This will be my first experience and if it goes well, then it can be applied to the NSU students.
In relation to the NSU alumni meeting in Kazakhstan, Sainova believes they are important but they should also have a practical application:
– Since it brought together the Kazakh community, it should be possible, for example, to come up with a prize to support the best student from Kazakhstan so they can study at NSU, or money to repair a lecture hall, make a Kazakh class or create a shop on the campus. At least 200 graduates of NSU live in Kazakhstan today so if everyone gets together each person would not have to donate much. Something practical should be the result of these meetings especially now that it was decided to make these meetings a regular occurrence.
Another proposal was made to organize meetings of graduates in different cities on the same day. For example, during the Total Dictation Russian language event. Sainova supported this idea:
– Everyone wrote a dictation, discussed joint projects and talked about Internet communication with graduates in other cities. So, it is clear this would be an interesting PR approach.
