Kioge-2022
Powering Youth
For the majority of international companies, employees are the key asset. Unfortunately, not everywhere human capital development gets deserved attention, with companies focusing their efforts on other areas, like facilities and operations. At the same time, it is hard to dispute the fact that even the “smartest” artificial intelligence can ever outmatch a sophisticated human intelligence or its creative potential.
Human capital development has a special place in Shell Kazakhstan’s day to day operations and its Social Investment portfolio. It is particularly worth noting that considerable attention is directed towards supporting talented young people by enhancing their potential so that they can improve their competencies and skills crucial for future employment. The main focus is given to STEM. There are three projects currently being implemented in this area: Student Energy Challenge - an intellectual team competition; Shell NXplorers- Shell’s program to develop STEM habits-of-minds; and Shell Eco-Marathon, an international competition in building the most energy-efficient prototypes.
The idea to launch the Student Energy Challenge was created during the EXPO-2017 international exhibition. This competition, jointly held by KAZENERGY and Shell Kazakhstan, has since been inspiring students from technical universities to develop innovative scientific projects that would offer solutions to energy challenges of today and tomorrow.
Since its launch in 2017, the competition welcomed more than a thousand students making up 270 teams from 40 universities of Kazakhstan.
Last year, right on its fifth anniversary, the competition was complemented by “Student Energy Challenge – Junior” component. This contest is for college students willing to pitch their innovative ideas in environmental safety in the energy sector, clean coal technology, raw gas processing, CO2 emission reduction, etc. 44 teams from 23 colleges in 10 regions of the country applied for the pilot season. The winners received monthly scholarships throughout the academic year of 2021-2022.
“Driving changes in the energy system require clear purpose and bold actions. Change needs to happen at pace with passion and determination. All common characteristics in the younger generations. They have wonderful ideas, enthusiasm and good understanding of challenges faced by the planet and society. We feel privileged in supporting the Student Energy Challenge, supporting and witnessing the talent of the young people living in Kazakhstan. We hope that the experience received in the competition will motivate the students to further improve their ideas and turn them into reality, we need it”, - says German Burmeister, Senior Vice President and Country Chair of Shell Kazakhstan.
Whilst preparing their projects for the Student Energy Challenge, students, united and inspired by the common goal of solving an energy dilemma, take webinars, trainings and workshops included in the program. In addition, the participants take part in Shell-developed program “Shell NXplorers” where they work on developing their critical thinking, scenario planning and comprehensive problem-solving skills. The two-day workshop consists of interactive group sessions, where young people can learn about the systems thinking and the concept of problem complexity.
“According to the World Economic Forum, complex problem-solving is the first skill that future specialists are going to need. NXplorers provides the young participants with methods and strategies necessary to understand the complexity of issues and realize how they can generate and implement changes”, - stated Tariq Hussain, Shell’s Global STEM lead.
He said that NXplorers helps students see themselves as ambassadors of positive change and gives them practical skills that can be applied to any challenging situation in the future.
Shell NXplorers is not only part of Student Energy Challenge and Student Energy Challenge – Junior but is also implemented as a standalone pilot project for schoolchildren of West Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions.
The competition terms are enhanced every year to adapt to global trends and participants’ requests. Thus, from 2022 and on, students have a unique opportunity to get support from mentors working at Shell Kazakhstan.
“This year we decided to add mentorship from Shell Kazakhstan employees as a bonus for the students. We are positive that this is an excellent chance for the participants to benefit from the support of people directly working in the industry. We believe that this will be useful for both the students and the mentors,”- said Aigul Barmenkulova, Head of Corporate Relations at Shell Kazakhstan.
In 2021 the winners were given a unique opportunity to work as interns in leading companies, where they continued working on their projects. The internship also included consultations, diagnostics and mentorship from acknowledged professionals.
Thus, last year, students were able to test their skills at the Bureau of Continuing Professional Development (BCPD Ltd.) based at the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC). During their training interns obtained practical skills while working on real projects and meeting the heads of organizations at AIFC and discussing further development of the team projects. Moreover, the participants of the fifth season studied the “Open your way” course, which includes programs teaching self-identification, professional orientation, development of flexible skills and entrepreneurship. Additional bonus – the participants received a year-long access to Skillfolio platform powered by BCPD and made for creating the digital profile of talents, skills and competencies.
Furthermore, the winning team Power X from the Nazarbayev University, who presented their project “Measuring the amount of ice on overhead power lines with wireless sensors”, became interns at Connected Home and took an online course in electrical engineering and radio frequency engineering. Students said that the course covered subjects that they had not had in their university curriculum, which allowed them to dive deeper into the practical applications of electrical diagrams and elements. During their internship, students studied interesting projects at Connected Home and assume that developing their own multi-sensor would be a useful and accessible product for the company’s customers. Their time at Company Home was so productive that by the end of their internship, they were offered jobs in the company.
Members of another team called “Ecolution” from the Kazakh-British Technical University presented BioSu – a project that solves the problems of cleaning and recycling drain water. The team interned at Caspian Oil Services Management Incorporated Kazakhstan, where they spent four months studying programs used at the enterprise, making calculations required in the oil industry, digitalizing oil fields and researching the landscape of the oil industry in Kazakhstan and abroad. They were also able to get familiar with the nuances of being a Drilling Engineer, take the petroleum engineering test IWSF and even pass the first two levels of certification. Ecolution members also got a chance to become a part of COSMI and work at the company.
“AirFlux” had its members intern in three companies – Teniz, Parqour and BCPD. The training process was diverse: some of them learned how to build complex mechanisms and work with microcircuits and microchips, others reviewed the tax reporting documents, while some students worked with Microsoft in organizing workshops for schoolteachers and taught them how to integrate digital tools into the teaching process.
“The opportunity to participate in competitions provide a strong stimulus not only to students but also to research supervisors and team mentors. Exchange of experience and impressions, support at all stages of the competition, compassion for each other give extra strength and energy to the teams in their way to victory. Our competition not only enhances the potential of the students and incentivizes to do science and business, but also opens up positive personal traits, such as self-reflection, analyzing other teams, working under pressure. These traits shine even brighter during the finals”, - says Executive Director of KAZENERGY Association, Lyazzat Akhmurzina.
Traditionally, the Finals and the award ceremony are held on the platform of KAZENERGY Eurasian Forum, where students and professors from the universities and colleges of Kazakhstan are invited. The Jury, consisting of independent experts from oil & gas, energy, environment and IT industries, thoroughly analyzes and evaluates the presented projects. The winners are awarded monetary grants and internships at leading companies. It is worth mentioning that the total prize fund since 2017 has amounted to more than 70 000 US dollars.
Organizing and holding the large-scale Student Energy Challenge competition is not the only tool in Shell Kazakhstan SI portfolio committed to educate and raise young specialists. Shell Kazakhstan with other industry partners also actively cooperates with Satbayev University to implement the teaching methodology of the world-leading petroleum engineering institution – the University of Colorado. The cooperation also involves supporting professors in their research activities to obtain their PhD degrees and guest lectures from international Shell experts.
As it was stated earlier, in its endeavor to become Kazakhstan’s reliable and socially responsible partner, Shell Kazakhstan, as one of the largest investors in the country, implements a number of voluntary social investments. In addition to Student Energy Challenge, the company has a project that supports students from Kazakhstan participating in the international Shell Eco-Marathon Asia-Pacific and Middle East program, where teams compete by building energy-efficient prototypes. Thanks to this funding, every year at least two teams from Kazakhstan can design their prototype and demonstrate it at the competition.
As one of the key players in the oil industry of Kazakhstan, with its 30th anniversary coming next year, Shell Kazakhstan continues to extend and improve its social investment portfolio. Every year new projects are being initiated in various areas to address the socioeconomic needs of the country. For this purpose, every three years Shell Kazakhstan updates and implements its strategy for voluntary social investments. The strategy includes a set of programmes supporting development of small and medium entrepreneurship, self-employment and employment of people from vulnerable social groups, implementation of educational projects in STEM area, as well as promoting best practices in road safety.