Byrganym Saryqyzy Aitimova (, born 26 February 1953) is a Kazakh politician and diplomat who was a member of the Kazakh Senate from 2013 to 2019 and in 1996. She served as the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to the United Nations, Cuba, and Solomon Islands concurrently from 2007 to 2013. Prior to her appointment as UN ambassador, she was the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan from 2004 to 2005 and then the Minister of Education and Science until Zhanseit Tuymenbayev replaced her on 10 January 2007. She served as Kazakhstan's Ambassador to Italy from 2002 to 2004, and ambassador to Israel from 1996 to 2002. Biography Early life and education Aitimova was born in 1953 in the village of Bakushino (now Aqjol), West Kazakhstan Region. She graduated from the A.S. Pushkin Oral Pedagogical Institute with a specialty of English language, and then in 1994 from the Faculty of Law at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University with a degree in law. Early career After graduating from the institute in 1974, she worked as a teacher at a secondary school in the West Kazakhstan Region, then, in 1976–1979, she was a secretary of the Komsomol Committee of the State Farm, head of the sector, and head of a department of the Oral Regional Committee of the Young Communist League of Kazakhstan. She was elected the First Secretary of the Oral City Committee of the Komsomol in 1979, and in 1981–the First Secretary of the Oral Regional Committee. From 1983, Aitimova worked as secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol until 1987, when she became the deputy chair of the Board of the Kazakh Branch of the Lenin Soviet Children's Fund. Political and diplomatic career From 1990 to 1993, Aitimova was the member of the Supreme Council of Kazakhstan where she served as the chair of the Committee for Youth Affairs. On 17 December 1993, she was appointed as the Youth, Tourism and Sports Minister by President Nursultan Nazarbayev and served in the post until being appointed as a member of the newly established Senate of Kazakhstan on 24 January 1996. That same year on 16 October 1996, Aitimova became the Kazakh ambassador to Israel. On 7 August 2002, Aitimova was appointed as a Kazakh Ambassador to Italy. From there she worked in the post until she was appointed as a Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan under Daniyal Akhmetov's government on 14 May 2004.