Marat Urdabayev is a PhD student in the Department of Economics at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty and a Research Fellow in the Department of Information and Implementation of Research Results at the Institute of Economics of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan. His work centers on quantitative assessment of smart city readiness and regional innovation dynamics. He earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in World Economy from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.