Dear students, faculty members and staff of International Information Technology University!
This September 1 is special for both you and me.
For the first time, I am welcoming a new academic year together with you as the Rector of International Information Technology University.
It comes at a time when the very field for which our university trains specialists is changing at tremendous speed.
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping the global economy, public administration, security, education, science and industry. The United States and China are engaged in a technological race for computing power, proprietary models, data and talent. The world's leading universities are revising educational programmes, research practices and graduate requirements. For nations, the ability to create and implement their own technologies is becoming a matter of competitiveness and technological independence.
Kazakhstan has made its choice in response to this global technological challenge.
The year 2026 has been declared the Year of Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence. The country's AI infrastructure is developing, supercomputing capacity is operating, the Law on Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Code have been adopted, AI-Sana is being implemented, and the task of developing a research university in the field of artificial intelligence has been set. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev put this crossroads very clearly: “With the emergence of artificial intelligence, a kind of watershed has appeared between those countries that manage to enter the future and those that remain in the past.”
A few days ago, speaking about the introduction of artificial intelligence into education, the Head of State once again drew attention to the main point: the speed of technological solutions must be accompanied by the readiness of the education system itself to apply them in practice. We need well-trained teachers, clear standards, data protection, responsible use of AI and, above all, people capable not only of using ready-made tools but also of creating their own solutions. Earlier, the President particularly emphasized: “No matter how advanced AI becomes, human thinking must always stay ahead of it.”
For International Information Technology University, these tasks have a very concrete meaning.
Our university was established to train specialists in information technology. Today, the importance of this mission has become much broader. Kazakhstan needs AI developers, engineers, data and cybersecurity specialists, researchers, architects of digital systems and technology entrepreneurs who understand both the capabilities of algorithms and the consequences of their application.
That is why today I would first of all like to address our first-year students.
Only a few months ago, you were choosing a university, comparing programmes, calculating your scores, waiting for grant results and discussing your decision with your parents. Today, that choice has been made — you are students of International Information Technology University (IITU).
Thank you and your families for your trust.
You chose your profession at a time when technology is becoming one of the key drivers of national development. This gives you enormous opportunities while at the same time placing entirely new demands on the quality of your knowledge.
Professions are changing faster than educational programmes. Artificial intelligence can already write code, analyse vast amounts of information, create images and videos, translate, design and forecast. What was considered a promising technology only a few years ago is becoming an everyday working tool.
Over the next four years, the tools you use today will also change. New models, new languages and new professions will emerge, while algorithms will take over part of the work we now consider routine. Therefore, the question with which you enter university is far more serious than the question of your future diploma: what will you be able to do better than a machine?
I believe this question should accompany each of us today — students, teachers, researchers and leaders.
IITU was founded in 2009, at a time when Kazakhstan needed its own specialists for a new digital economy. Over the years, the university has trained thousands of graduates. Today they work in Kazakhstani and international companies, create their own technological products and contribute to software engineering, Data Science, information security, telecommunications, financial technologies and digital media.
The university now faces the next challenge of a comparable scale. Kazakhstan is accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence, and the President has set a clear task for the education system: to learn how to use new technologies thoughtfully, safely and effectively. Requirements are already changing at the level of schools, colleges and universities.
For IITU, these challenges are of particular importance.
During the past academic year, the second edition of the Inter-University Standard for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Higher and Postgraduate Education was developed at our university and approved by the Republican Educational and Methodological Council of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Our university is participating in shaping the rules by which AI is entering the educational, scientific and administrative practices of Kazakhstani universities.
For me, it is essential that the next step be connected with practical results: the standard must work in the classroom, research must lead to development, development must lead to implementation, and your knowledge must translate into the ability to solve real problems. This is the outcome by which a university should be assessed.
The past academic year has already given us a strong foundation. IITU educational programmes achieved high positions in the national Atameken ranking. Data Science confirmed a 100 percent graduate employment rate, while programmes in telecommunications, software engineering, information systems, financial technologies, network security and digital journalism also demonstrated strong results. Three educational programmes received international accreditation, including the master's programme in Artificial Intelligence.
Cooperation with technology companies and foreign universities is expanding. SAP, cloud technologies and cybersecurity, international programmes, academic mobility and joint AI projects — behind every such agreement, I want to see a concrete opportunity for students and faculty: access to laboratories and technologies, joint research, internships, hackathons and first job offers. Only then does partnership have real meaning.
Today, it is particularly challenging to be a teacher at a technological university. A student may gain access to a new tool before a textbook has even been published, and sometimes learns about a new model or service at the same time as the teacher. Therefore, a teacher's authority is increasingly determined not by the volume of information they possess, but by their ability to teach students to think, verify, question, formulate problems and take responsibility for results.
Dear faculty members, dear members of the university's academic community!
I place great hope in our professional partnership.
Most of my professional life has been connected with information technology, artificial intelligence, digital education and university management, so many of IITU's tasks are professionally close to me. But a university cannot be understood solely through documents, rankings and information systems — it must be listened to.
It is important for me to hear students, teachers, researchers, staff and alumni; to understand what constitutes IITU's strength today, what needs to be developed further and which accumulated issues require our joint solutions. I am convinced that through such interaction we will be able to confirm and strengthen IITU's position as one of the country's leading technological universities.
IITU was originally established as a university for a technological era that was new to Kazakhstan. Today, the next stage is beginning, when competition is taking place between universities and countries, educational models, research teams, technological solutions and the speed at which knowledge is transformed into a working product.
IITU has what is most important for this competition: a clear profile, experience, strong graduates, a professional community and young people who consciously choose technology as their profession.
Dear first-year students!
In a few years, the world you enter with your diplomas will be noticeably different from today's world, and many of the tools you will use have not even been created yet. Therefore, during your years at IITU, I wish you to gain more than a profession: to learn quickly, work with strong people, not be afraid of difficult tasks, test your own decisions, carry what you start through to results and preserve independent thinking in a world where machines will perform an ever-growing share of the work.
Our common task is to create conditions at the university in which you will have the opportunity to gain such knowledge, experience and professional training.
Congratulations on the beginning of the new academic year!
Happy Knowledge Day!
Gulmira Bekmanova, Rector of International Information Technology University
