On April 1, 2022, the official opening ceremony of the SMART CITY LAB was held at the Kazakh-British Technical University with the Department of Digitalization of Almaty city and the international Swiss organization IGLUS.

Deputy Mayor of Almaty Alisher Abdykadyrov, Professor of the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne Matthias Finger and Rector (Chairman of the Board) of the Kazakh-British Technical University Gabdullin Maratbek Tulebergenovich solemnly cut the ribbon.

“In modern times, the development of cities depends on the applied experience and knowledge base of individual areas. This project, based on the methodology of smart city management, will allow to centralize the collection and analysis of information and competence in one place. Almaty will receive constant access to the best world experience and will develop as a modern city with a developed infrastructure,” said Alisher Abdykadyrov, Deputy Mayor of Almaty.

This laboratory is designed to improve the city of Almaty in terms of digitalization and process automation.

Objectives of the laboratory: measurement of the efficiency of urban systems, development of infrastructure and training of personnel in the educational programs of the master's programs Smart City and Smart Systems. In the future, on the basis of KBTU, it is also planned to open the branch of Department of Digitalization of Almaty city, which will allow employees to develop projects with IT master and PhD students.

“This is the first laboratory in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, and we are proud to open it at KBTU in Almaty. Together with our partners, we will implement the tasks and goals of this laboratory, train new specialists, master and PhD students, and help improve the quality of citizens’ life, introduce new solutions to modernize the infrastructure of our beloved city,” said the Rector (Chairman of the Board) of the Kazakh-British Technical University Gabdullin Maratbek Tulebergenovich.

IGLUS is a research program created by the Swiss Federal School of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). This school was established in 2011 and aims to improve the management of large, complex and dynamic urban systems.

“We help people get a system view because cities are complex systems. We want the citizens to ultimately feel the consequences of this approach. We draw attention to aspects from our global network that people can apply”, - said Matthias Finger, professor at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne.