By Rimsha Ali Shah, SUSI alumna
Quite recently I had the pleasure of attending Tech Forum Central Asia (TFCA 14) in Almaty, Kazakhstan as a participant from Pakistan along with Zoe Richards from Lahore. My first travel to a central Asian state was quite riveting and enlightening in different ways. The conference ran for two days under the theme “Women and Tech,” which brought to the fore successful females who had effectively used technology to attain their goals.
With around 100 participants from Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan gathered in the halls of KIMEP University, the tech-fever was contagious, with each participant excited and thrilled to polish their social entrepreneurship ideas with the help of the training sessions. The sessions, delivered by successful male and female professionals from Pakistan, India, U.K., Kazakhstan and Qatar, covered a diverse range of topics related to technology and media, ranging from crowdsourcing to content marketing, to Google tools and blogging as well as online journalism and data analytics, and much more!
The best thing was how the sessions focused on the use of low/zero cost technologies for business and social projects. It was inspiring to see how a simple project as Youth ki Awaaz (www.youthkiawaaz.com) had blossomed into an internationally recognized platform and how a stay-at-home mom had become a successful entrepreneur and market leader through the effective and smart use of technology and media that provided insight and vision to the young participants at the conference.
TFCA’14 was not just a learning ground for aspiring tech buffs, but also provided the opportunity for like-minded individuals to network and collectively create a social action project that makes use of low cost technology for social benefit. The teams were mentored by the trainers to come up with social action projects on Education, Violence against Women, Environment, Poverty and Entrepreneurship. The projects were also submitted for a follow-up grant funding opportunity provided by TFCA to the participants.
Apart from the riveting two-day conference, the experience of discovering Almaty was an experience in itself. Beautiful snow-capped peaks, in the background of the historically-rich Soviet architecture, was a sight to behold. The view of Almaty from the Kok-Tobe cable car, the dinner at the ravishing Uzbek restaurant Alasha, the endless wandering in downtown Almaty, the underground shopping areas and the innumerable fountains that cover the city and not to forget the oh-so-refreshing lemonade at the Golden Shisha!
In a nutshell, TFCA’14 helped me learn more about cost-effective technology usage, women who are leaders in the tech world, friendships that stretch beyond borders, memories in the midst of the beautiful Almaty and most importantly, the experience opened up my eyes to the amazing work that is being and that can be done through collaboration and vision.
