Almaty has officially opened inVision U, a university project by millionaire and inDrive founder Arsen Tomsky. Kursiv Lifestyle learned how the new institution's program differs from traditional universities, as reported by infohub.kz.

Instruction will be primarily in English. It was in English that first-year students recited their oath to "study, study, and study again."

According to university rector Andrew Wachtel, the main bachelor's program will begin in the second year. In the first year, students are taught to think outside the box. Wachtel himself, for example, analyzes poetry by Eminem and Vladimir Vysotsky. His course is called "thinking artistically" — thinking like a poet. Students will try writing poetry in Kazakh or Russian, then compare their poems with those generated by AI.

"The most important thing is not to create poets, but for students to feel how an artist sees the world, what this kind of thinking gives them. They have scientific thinking, design thinking, thinking in time. That is, a whole series of courses that give them the opportunity to rethink this world. And then they have normal academic programs for about two years," the rector noted.

The final, fourth year will be dedicated to a startup or charitable project. In groups of 4–5, students will choose a local problem to try to solve. A jury led by Arsen Tomsky will select several of the best projects and invest in them to encourage graduates to stay in the country after finishing university.

"We understand: interesting problems are multidisciplinary, but you can't create a multidisciplinary person. That is, creating a Leonardo da Vinci is pointless — that's a unique individual. You can create a person who knows how to work with others, thinks differently, and can work productively together. That is the essence of education here," Wachtel explained.

According to Arsen Tomsky, for the first few years instruction will be based at Satbayev University. In about two to three years, his team will find a plot of land to build a separate campus.

Earlier, Kursiv Lifestyle reported that Arsen Tomsky opened a sports university in Astana, where esports players also study.