2024, July 29
Share this articleEach year, the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI) selects university and high school students for a summer internship to teach them practical skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data algorithms.
During the internship, students work on real-world cases and projects under the mentorship of data analysts from the research center.
This year, the "Summer Research Program" broke records with over 500 applications - from 186 university students and over 300 high school students, double the previous years' numbers. Of the university candidates, 23 students, including some from international universities, entered the program. They demonstrated strong theoretical and practical skills in machine learning. As noted by one of the mentors, ISSAI data analyst Aknur Karabay, experience in projects related to natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision (CV), excellent English proficiency, and high academic performance are also on the radar.
Akzhan Oskelen from Korkyt Ata University applied to deepen his understanding of AI.
"The opportunity to work on AI projects over the summer seemed ideal. During the program, I significantly improved my web scraping skills and deepened my understanding of AI. We faced challenges in data collection due to some sites having strong protection and complex structures, but our mentor, Batyr Arystanbekov, helped us overcome them," The opportunity to work on AI projects during the summer seemed like the perfect chance to gain hands-on experience and contribute to something meaningful during my break. During the SRP, I significantly improved my skills in web scraping and deepened my understanding of AI. There were difficulties while scraping the web because some websites had robust security and complex structures. But our advisor, Batyr, helped us to overcome them", shares Akzhan.
Kamronbek Mamaroziqov from New Uzbekistan University decided to pursue a career in data analytics after working for a year and completing online courses in AI and Big Data.
"After the online courses, I felt the need to apply my acquired knowledge to put into practice and fill the gaps working on real projects. SRP offered a chance to spend summer time more efficiently, network with a wide range of professionals in this field, and explore a new country for me," he says.
In the program, Kamronbek gained valuable experience in data collection using BeautifulSoup and learned to fine-tune models.
"The wide variety of websites made it difficult to scrape value data. It took several weeks to figure out how to approach certain websites so that we could efficiently collect mass data from them. Fine-tuning a pre-trained model has been challenging, requiring several days of hard work. Working on these projects, I have learned how to use the widely available AI technologies better," he added.
As ISSAI data analyst Ulzhan Bissarinova noted, this year's internship tasks differed from those of previous years adding product development to Data Science.
"As ISSAI has already trained and released numerous freely and openly available models for access, the next request that naturally arose was the creation of products that work based on machine learning models produced by ISSAI. So, this year, we specifically worked and are still working on the product development, which utilizes the Kazakh Foundational Speech Model (KFSM) for speech to text, text to speech conversions, as well as interlingual translation purposes, which encompass four languages (Kazakh, Russian, English, and Turkish)," Ulzhan highlighted.
ISSAI also conducts summer research camps for high school students. This year, 25 candidates from 311 applications won. Students from different regions worked on projects in tensegrity robots and virtual and augmented reality, gaining essential knowledge in designing and programming robots and skills in using 3D printers.
"We worked on real research projects already being conducted at the university. Personally, I learned how to conduct a literature review for a research paper, so we worked a lot independently, like real researchers. The program started with lectures on basic CAD and 3D modelling skills and basic knowledge in augmented reality, and the next three weeks were dedicated to applying these skills in research projects," shared the only student from Tashkent, Nigora Ashrapova.
ISSAI Senior Data scientist Zhanat Makhataeva, who completed a 12-week internship at Microsoft, strived to create a work environment similar to that in the American corporation, holding daily meetings and discussions with the students, providing support, and monitoring their progress.
"It was quite challenging, but they managed. The students created projects from scratch, from concept development to final products. This year, the high school students were very well-prepared. Almost all were informatics Olympiad winners, and some were founders of companies and startups. We wanted to show how their background could work outside of school, in real conditions," noted Zhanat.
Under her mentorship, the students developed a virtual teacher, several avatars, and vitrual national clothing.
Thus, the ISSAI Summer Research Program (SRP) provides unique opportunities for students and high schoolers, offering them practical experience and knowledge necessary for a successful career in artificial intelligence. Mentors note that this year's students are well-trained, and candidates' competency has seen an annual increase. In some cases, ISSAI can even offer research assistant positions to university students who successfully complete the SRP.
