Almas Kebekbayev ’08 (Almaty, Kazakhstan/Visalia, CA)
Project Title:  Programming Boot Camp
Project Location:  Almaty, Kazakhstan
$1147 in 2014 FLEX Alumni Grant Program Funding

21-770x516Summary: Almas Kebekbayev ’08 organized the project Programming Boot Camp for over 30 high school students.  The alumnus, who is a Partner Relationship Manager at Samsung Electrics in Almaty, taught the students the basics of the popular programming language Python.  Almas learned this language during his exchange year in the U.S. and then pursued a degree in computer science at American University as a student of the Bolashak Scholarship Program.

The Programming Boot Camp participants met for ten classes at Turan University where they took part in lessons and hands-on workshops to learn the basics of the Python.  Sessions started on September 13, Programmer Day when Almas encouraged the students to take part in the international Hour of Coding project.  Students also received homework to reinforce the lessons and continue their study of programming at home.

Turan University offered free of cost conference room and computer lab space for the project and Samsung donated prizes and other technical equipment for the project.

Many of the project participants shared their interest in continuing their study of computer science, programming, and the Python programming language.  News coverage about the project can be found at:  http://kazakh-tv.kz/ru/programms/viewArchive?id=5281