30,000 participants from 30 countries attended Digital Bridge 2023

The International IT Forum Digital Bridge 2023 brought together more than 30,000 participants, including delegations from 30 countries, representatives of more than 300 IT companies, 450 speakers, over 100 investors and business angels, as well as more than 150 startups. The main theme of the forum was Artificial and Human Intelligence: The right balance.

The opening of Digital Bridge 2023 took place in the format of a plenary session with the participation of the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, outstanding leaders of global companies, as well as invited experts from the international and domestic IT community and venture investors from the entire region.

Also spoke at the plenary session:

— Tim Draper, venture investor, co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, founder of Draper University

— Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok

— Aset Abdualiev, founder of the Digital Nomads and Silkroad Innovation Hub community

— William Paucher, executive director of the ICPC Foundation,

— Lauren Dreyer, Vice President of SpaceX for Starlink

— Alexey Li, founder of online services Arbuz, Aviata, Pinemelon USA and Ticketon.

Alikhan Smailov, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, presented awards to the winners of Digital Bridge Awards 2023. There were 337 applications for participation in the prestigious award from Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Singapore, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and the USA. This year, the best in the field of digitalization were determined in seven categories. The winners were: EPAM Kazakhstan, Ozim Platform, Alem.school, Limon.KG, Kolesa group, Big Sky Capital, Zypl.ai.

Within the framework of the forum, 55 panel discussions, round tables, and keynote presentations were held, where the most important topics of Kazakhstan's development as an IT country, the creative industry, the application of GPT in education, the concept of Smart city, new prospects for women in the digital economy, the development of the regional venture market, progress in space communication, the impact of 5G on digital transformation, No Code trends, as well as the impact of artificial intelligence on the development of the Kazakh language, issues of interaction between AI and democracy, and methods of data management in the modern context were discussed.

At the Digital Bridge 2023 venue, government agencies, large companies, international technology parks, and other organizations signed 29 documents aimed at the development of IT innovations. The Center for International Programs in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence of the Republic of Kazakhstan concluded three memorandums, including with the ICPC Foundation about holding the World Programming Championship in 2024 in Kazakhstan. The international technology park Astana Hub signed eight memorandums aimed at developing the ecosystem of technological startups in Central Asia, the venture market of Kazakhstan by popularizing venture investments in the region, as well as the development of the game development industry.

Another unique event of Digital Bridge 2023 was the filming of the startup reality show Meet the Drapers. This year, they conducted filming in Central Eurasia for the first time. Four Kazakh startups that passed the preliminary selection presented their projects, and only one of them advanced to the semi-finals of the competition. However, according to the competition rules, information about which specific Kazakh participant will compete for the chance to receive an investment of $1,000,000 is not yet disclosed.

Tim Draper highly appreciated Kazakhstan's progress in the digital sphere, noting the Ministry of Digital Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan and emphasized the important role of Astana Hub in forming a strong startup community and its positive impact on youth.

Within the framework of the forum, the Google for Startups summit also took place for the first time. Representatives of 15 partner countries of the company participating in the Google for Startups acceleration program arrived in Kazakhstan, where they held their own expert event. This became a logical development of the successful cooperation between Google for Startups and Astana Hub within the Silkway Accelerator. It should be noted that 37 startups have gone through this program, with a total valuation of $400,000,000.