On October 18–19, Nazarbayev University (NU) hosted the AIESEC x Higgsfield Case Championship — a case competition organized by the international youth organization AIESEC in partnership with Higgsfield, Kazakhstan’s first unicorn startup.
The hackathon brought together young and experienced professionals in information technology, artificial intelligence, and creative industries. Participants worked on real business cases from Higgsfield, generating innovative ideas for the modern market under tight time constraints and through teamwork. The competition featured two key tracks: Startup Marketing (covering growth strategies, branding, and product scaling) and Prompt Engineering (focused on the effective use of AI and generative technologies for solving practical problems).
At the beginning of the event, the Higgsfield team held a panel discussion to share insights about the company’s journey and future plans. Higgsfield co-founder Erzat Dulat highlighted the uniqueness of the project, emphasizing that the company’s success is largely driven by the strength of its team.
“We don’t have as much funding as Chinese companies do, but thanks to our exceptional team — developers, creatives, and growth specialists — we’ve managed to stay ahead of the market. Ninety percent of Higgsfield’s team are graduates of Nazarbayev University,” he said.
According to Dulat, this fact demonstrates the competitiveness of Kazakhstan’s human capital.
“We work much more efficiently than American companies, and that’s thanks to our speed of market integration. In the near future, we aim to reach 10 million paying users and become a decacorn company. That’s why we’re always looking for talented people — and NU remains our top priority. We’re very grateful for the growing interest in Higgsfield,” noted the CTO of Higgsfield.
He also recalled that, at the start of their journey, many doubted the possibility of building an AI company out of Kazakhstan: “People told us it was impossible to build an AI company from Kazakhstan — that we wouldn’t be able to hire even ten world-class professionals in marketing, machine learning, or product. But now our team has grown to 70 people, and our standards are very high. Everyone at Higgsfield is a top-level specialist, and our company’s expertise keeps growing every day. So it’s simply not true to say there’s no global talent in Kazakhstan.”
The championship also featured masterclasses by industry experts, networking sessions with technology professionals, and career development activities.
It is worth noting that it was during a guest lecture at NU that Higgsfield representatives first publicly announced their unicorn status.
