On June 2, 2022, the Kazakh-British Technical University (KBTU) officially opened a cybersecurity laboratory. Equipped and decorated according to the highest international standards, this laboratory has become the second training platform for KBTU students opened as part of the large-scale Halyk Academy project. The project was initiated and implemented by Halyk Bank in cooperation with the leading technical universities of the country. The goal of Halyk Academy is to promote the training of highly qualified IT specialists.
"Timely training of highly qualified, well–trained specialists is an important issue that certainly appears with such a dynamic development of the IT and information security market. Continuing our fruitful cooperation with KBTU, we are launching the first Halyk Academy laboratory in the field of information security – the Master's Degree in Information Security. Such involvement in the process of educating future personnel will allow, including us, as one of the largest financial structures in the country, to be able to constantly recruit high-quality specialists who know the nuances of ensuring cybersecurity in the banking sector. And the students themselves will have a unique opportunity to successfully realize themselves in the professional field," said Evgeny Belov, Director of the Information Resources Protection Department at Halyk Bank.
The opening of the new laboratory is directly related to the fact that this academic year KBTU is launching a new educational program – "Cybersecurity". Using the capabilities of the laboratory, university teachers will conduct classes in such disciplines as ethical hacking, operating system security, advanced cloud computing and many others. It is very important that the leading specialists of Halyk Bank in the field of information resource protection will also teach students and share practical knowledge and cases with them.
"Nowadays, information security is not a matter of choice, but a real necessity. We understand our task in this matter: to provide the market with qualified specialists who will possess a wide range of skills for successful work in the field of cybersecurity. Cybersecurity lab is equipped with high-performance computers and its own server, with their help it is possible to simulate various working situations and solve them in real time. Thus, students will be able to analytically and creatively approach the tasks, and this, in turn, will be beneficial to distinguish them in the labor market," said KBTU Rector Maratbek Gabdullin in his speech.
Halyk Academy has been operating for the third year, during this time, educational laboratories for students were created and equipped from scratch at the leading technical universities of Kazakhstan. During the entire existence of the project, more than 150 students have passed through the training program, of which 105 students have interned at the Bank as interns, and more than half of the interns have joined the staff and remained working at the Bank.
In addition, employees of Halyk Bank's IT departments are involved in practical training sessions, and in cooperation with the management of universities, banking profile specialists act as joint developers of one or more tracks of training programs. Halyk Academy allows not only to train highly qualified personnel for the Kazakh society, but also in the future will provide an opportunity for talented young people to train at the largest financial institution in Central Asia - Halyk Bank.
