00:00I'm Asim Bolazan, I'm a Chapter Director of Women in Tech Kazakhstan.
00:16When we started the Digital Kazakhstan Programme, 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.
00:43My name is Renata Yulubaeva. 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, I believe.
00:59I came from the international relations sphere.
01:02And I've always been a lot of competing with all of the men, not just because of a woman,
01:07but I just was a very newcomer in the industry.
01:10My name is Agirim 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.
01:24And 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.
01:31And it is a very awesome experience to develop and be the part of such a great industry
01:38because the industry is new, the ecosystem is new, and you have a chance to be the part of the big story.
01:48What I see during years in Kazakhstan, we do improve all of the business processes,
01:55and we do improve our technology development. And it's also improved for women.
01:59For women, it's a big challenge because we are in a male-dominated country,
02:03in a male-dominated region in general.
02:05One year ago, we launched the chapter Women in Tech here in Kazakhstan
02:09because we need to be part of some global community
02:12because Women in Tech globally has 65 chapters over the world.
02:16The first obstacle that I met was actually in my mind.
02:20I was really disrupted and was thinking that if you don't have a technical background,
02:26there is nothing to do.
02:27This is the main mistake that most of the girls are having right now.
02:31Ecosystems like Astana Hub and Women in Tech are helping the girls and people around
02:38to change this mindset because if you have no technical background,
02:42even though you can do the startup,
02:44because you can have lots of experts in different acceleration programs,
02:48and you don't have to pay for that.
02:50In general, in STEM in Kazakhstan,
02:54we have about the 25-30% of presence of women in technologies.
03:00And it is quite good, yes,
03:01because in average it is global statistics and we are good at it.
03:05But 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 a venture capitalist in general.
03:19So that's why recently we've announced our first female venture fund
03:23and we would like to involve more women as investors.
03:27Because mostly in VCs, in the decision maker,
03:30there are also men on the other side who are making decisions.
03:33In Women in Tech, Kazakhstan, for the female founders,
03:36we are trying to build one more platform,
03:38one more space for negotiations, for fundraising, business development,
03:41to support those females.
03:43Because it's not very easy.
03:44You come from work, you have a second shift,
03:46you have children, you have stuff to do, cleaning, cooking, a lot of things.
03:50And especially in Kazakhstan, we are a very traditional country,
03:52you have to have a lot of negotiations with your relatives,
03:55with your husband's relatives.
03:57At the same time, going back to work, you're a boss,
04:00you're a leader, you're a C-level decision maker.
04:02So it's very hard.
04:03It's even very hard to do mentally.
04:05My personal advice will be start today.
04:07Don't wait the ideal moment.
04:09Whatever you want, just test your ideas, test your hypothesis.
04:13And this is my main point to show the women that even with no technical background,
04:19even with children, even in Central Asia,
04:21you can build everything you want.
04:23Just it is the problem of communication, of knowledge, and the ecosystem that we have.
04:32So that's why it is very important to make this background
04:35and accelerate not only the startups,
04:37but also the female venture capitalist community.
04:40In three years, we can build a more strong technological community
04:45of female startups, I'm sure.
04:48So our VC and our platform from Kazakhstan will quickly develop into the central hub VC, I think.
04:55...
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