Almaty hosted the Startup Battle, where young developers presented innovative solutions for the construction industry, from a robot dog for site inspection to AI-based services, reports infohub.kz.
Over the course of a month, the organizers — BI Group, MOST Business Intelligence, and KazGASA — scouted IT solutions for construction. Out of 300 applications, 24 projects made it to the finals and were presented to the jury. The best ones got the opportunity to pilot their solutions on real BI Group sites.
Dmitry Sinitsa, IT Director for Data and AI at BI Group, emphasized the importance of monitoring new startups: "We constantly work on improving processes and quality, implement best practices, and strive to set new standards for the market. Currently, we focus on applying technologies in our core area, which forms the main value of the product for the client — quality."
Applications were evaluated on relevance, potential to improve business processes, and increase profitability. Sinitsa noted the wide range of technologies, from drones to digital twins and large language models. "It was especially pleasing that startups are transforming traditional, seemingly conservative areas: elevator maintenance, road paving technologies," he added.
Dias Kozhataev, CEO of MOST Business Intelligence, spoke about his company's role in selecting projects: "We handled project selection, scouting IT companies, startup solutions, technological and innovative approaches to improve business processes in the construction industry, as well as evaluating their results. We expect this to become the foundation for a long-term partnership between MOST and BI Group."
Among the finalists was Tasyma, a logistics platform for the construction business. Co-founder Asylkhan Aldanazar said: "Currently, about 1,500 drivers work with us, completing 20-30 orders a day. We would like our clients to help us improve the product."
The competition also featured a robot dog for patrolling construction sites and the Tanra AI service, which converts voice messages into reports. Startup representative Gani Seidagul explained: "If audio information is compiled into daily reports, it will lead to better budget planning. Our speech-to-text model recognizes Russian and Kazakh, generates a report, and compares it with the project."
Participant from South Korea, Arthur Khan, presented Artexa, a system with a 360-degree camera: "The service automatically calculates where there are discrepancies with the project and where corrections are needed to reduce the company's budget for rework."
Following the competition, the jury selected three winners: 3rd place — Pavel Kim (Basira Intelligence), 2nd place — Kanat Tazhikhan (Astana Dynamics), 1st place — Oman Abyshev (Factory Builder). The prize fund totaled 3 million tenge. Additionally, several other projects received the opportunity to collaborate with BI Group on a pilot basis.