How Kazakhstan’s female entrepreneurs are leading Central Asia’s tech revolution
From bootstrapped startups to the region’s first female-focused venture fund, Kazakhstan’s women are breaking barriers, transforming industries, and redefining what it means to lead in tech.
In partnership with MDQ
READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/11/26/how-kazakhstans-female-entrepreneurs-are-leading-central-asias-tech-revolution
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00:00I'm Asim Boladzhan, I'm a Chapter Director of Women in Tech Kazakhstan.
00:16When we started the Digital Kazakhstan program, I decided to be involved more in IT.
00:22And from 2015, in all this community, I was only one woman in room.
00:29If you are in this minority, it is your personal story.
00:33So that's why I decided we need to do something to support and to involve in tech in IT more women.
00:44My name is Renata Yudbaeva. I'm a CEO of Alfa Rabi Innovation Hub Dubai.
00:47At the same time, I'm an Astana City Lead for Women in Tech Kazakhstan Chapter.
00:52And I'm also supporting Female Founders 3.
00:54Actually, I'm in the technology and IT sphere for more than eight years now.
00:58I believe I came from the international relations sphere.
01:01And I've always been a lot of competing with all of the men.
01:05Not just because of a woman, but I just was a very newcomer in the industry.
01:09My name is Idirim Nurkaliyeva. I'm a mom of two and I'm a surreal entrepreneur.
01:19For the last 12 years, I'm performing with small businesses like beauty salons.
01:23And for nowadays, I'm building my second startup.
01:26For the last five years, I'm dealing with this IT industry with no technical background.
01:30And it is a very awesome experience to develop and be the part of such a great industry.
01:37Because the industry is new, the ecosystem is new, and you have a chance to be the part of the big story.
01:43What I see during years in Kazakhstan, we do improve all of the business processes,
01:54and we do improve our technology development, and it's also improved for women.
01:58For women, it's a big challenge because we are in male-dominated country, in male-dominated region in general.
02:04One year ago, we launched the chapter Women in Tech here in Kazakhstan because we need to be part of some global community
02:11because Women in Tech globally has 65 chapters over the world.
02:15The first obstacle that I met was actually in my mind.
02:19I was really disrupted and was thinking that if you don't have a technical background, there is nothing to do.
02:26This is the main mistake that most of girls are having right now.
02:30ecosystems like Astana Hub and Women in Trek are helping the girls and people around to change this mindset.
02:39Because if you have no technical background, even though you can do the startup,
02:43because you can have lots of experts in different acceleration programs, and you don't have to pay for that.
02:49In general, in STEM in Kazakhstan, we have about the 25-30% of presence of women in technologies.
02:59And it is quite good, yes, because in average it is global statistics and we are good at it.
03:04But we need to pay attention on female founders.
03:09We have not so many female co-founded and founded startups.
03:13We have not so many women in venture industry as venture capitalists in general.
03:18So that's why recently we've announced our first female venture fund, and we would like to involve more women as investors.
03:27Because mostly in VCs, in the decision maker, there are also men on the other side who are making decisions.
03:32In Women in Trek Kazakhstan, for the female founders, we are trying to build one more platform, one more space for negotiations, for fundraising, business development to support those females.
03:42Because it's not very easy. You come from work, you have a second shift, you have children, you have stuff to do, cleaning, cooking, a lot of things.
03:49And especially in Kazakhstan, we are a very traditional country. You have to have a lot of negotiations with your relatives, with your husband's relatives.
03:56At the same time, going back to work, you're a boss, you're a leader, you're a C-level decision maker.
04:01So it's very hard. It's even very hard to do mentally.
04:04My personal advice will be start today, don't wait the ideal moment, whatever you want, just test your ideas, test your hypothesis.
04:12And this is my main point to show the women that even with no technical background, even with children, even in Central Asia, you can build everything you want.
04:22Just it is the problem of communication of knowledge and the ecosystem that we have.
04:28So that's why it is very important to make this background and accelerate not only the startups, but also the female venture capitalist community.
04:39In three years, we can build a more strong technological community of female startups, I'm sure.
04:47So our VC and our platform from Kazakhstan will quickly develop into the central hub VC, I think.
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