Kazakh youth develops and applies own "green" ideas. Nazarbayev University students implemented 16 solutions to improve the environmental performance of the campus. The projects were implemented as part of the Sustainability Living Lab Program of the University’s Office of Sustainable Development. Their goal is to support students’ green initiatives, applied research and innovation, as well as inform in these issues. Thus, the innovations are aimed at improving energy efficiency, recycling plastic products, planting of greenery on campus, finding alternative fuel sources, introducing green standards and much more. They all contribute to environmental awareness and sustainable development. And this is a global trend, projects’ authors note.
“Our project is called “V.Elec”, it is a simple and convenient fitness cycle that allows getting electricity from sports activity. Initially, our goal was to show that power generation is possible from a wide variety of life processes, and in this case, it is a stationary bike workout. We have an inverter that takes 12 volts and converts them into 220 volts AC, and you can also plug in your charger and recharge your phone,” said Sultan Mendybayev, the project author.
“Our project is the creation of a hydroponic installation. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil, that is, water-based. All the necessary minerals are added to the water. Our team built a hydroponic plant, you can plant about 120 seedlings in it, and most importantly, we have automated it. We monitor all indicators of our installation,” said Khabiba Zhunussova, the project author.
Translation by Galiya Khassenkhanova and Assem Zhanmukhanova
