Today, during the meeting of the Government chaired by the Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev, the Minister of Information and Communications Dauren Abayev reported on the measures being taken to implement the Smart City projects in Kazakhstan.

As noted by Dauren Abayev, the concept of Smart City is designed to improve the efficiency of all city services. At the heart of the mission of Smart City is a person and his needs. The key characteristics of a smart city are comfort, safety, efficiency and environmental friendliness.

"One of the main indicators of the state program Digital Kazakhstan is the development of Smart City in the five largest cities of the country — Smart Astana, Smart Karaganda, Smart Ontystuk, Smart Almaty, Smart Aktobe," said Dauren Abayev

The main executors of these projects are the akimats of the regions. The main priorities of their work in the development of the smart city are: improving the quality of life of the region’s residents; increasing the share of public services in electronic form; joining the international Smart city ratings by the regions of Kazakhstan; developing MIO architecture; implementing initiative projects according to the Smart city concept; stimulation of paperless interaction in G2G, B2B and G2B segments.

The Minister noted that a typical concept of smart city was developed within the framework of the state program. It presents a list of projects using such advanced technologies as the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and others. The document also defines the fundamental principles, approaches, goals, priorities and tasks of implementing Smart City technologies.

"The projects will be implemented within the framework of public-private partnership, the service model of informatization, budget financing and private investment. At the same time, the implementation of projects is planned using benchmarking, that is, with an orientation toward the best world and domestic practices," said Dauren Abayev.

Based on international standards, Kazakhstan has developed and approved its own national standards in the field of Smart City. They regulate uniform requirements for fundamentally new opportunities for centralized management of urban processes, including a high level of security and services, through innovative solutions in energy saving, housing and communal services, transport, education, health, environment and information technology.

According to the Minister of Information and Communications, the main mechanism will be the Collaborative Innovation — a format of interaction between state bodies and private organizations, which will gradually develop new improved solutions, approaches and necessary changes in the NGA.

The speaker drew attention to the fact that the concept suggests conducting a city assessment on the degree of Smart City implementation. Following the results, a Map of the Implementation Degree will be displayed, which is a table with a corresponding scale of assessment. The assessment will be assigned to each industry based on compliance with the indicators of standards of Kazakhstan.

Akim of Astana city Aset Issekeshev, Almaty — Bauyrzhan Baibek and Karaganda region — Yerlan Koshanov made presentations on regional implementation practices and status of implementation of Smart City projects.