IT community from Central Asia: Women Techmakers Bishkek

Ksenia Tsyganova, city — Bishkek, frontend developer, mentor, team leader Women Techmakers, @niakoks

About the community

Women Techmakers is a Google initiative supporting women in STEM professions. It was founded in 2013 in Silicon Valley.

WTM.kg is the team of this initiative in the Kyrgyz Republic, which has been operating since 2019. The main goal is to support and develop women in the field of technology. By creating platforms for networking and growth through our events, we strive to encourage the development of both soft skills and hard skills.

Our primary task is to provide access to information and resources. We connect those seeking knowledge and opportunities with those who want to share their experience and expertise — experts in their respective fields. In the ocean of information available to everyone, it is easy to get lost, and often difficult to navigate. We provide the opportunity to get answers to your questions from those who have already walked this path.

Community Members

Our target audience consists of early-career professionals and students. Most of our event attendees are girls and women working in and interested in the STEM field. 

Our participants are girls who want positive changes for their country, city, and community. They are mentors, speakers, and experts — people we look up to, want to be close to, and are ready to follow. Additionally, some members of the current team were volunteers at our events — this is a great opportunity to work with us to see if we are a good fit for each other.

Becoming part of our community is not difficult: if our values resonate with you — write to us on Instagram — and we can discuss potential collaboration.

Events for community members

Our events are open to everyone! If you see an event you would like to attend — register immediately, as we often have limited spots. We organize a variety of events across different fields. The largest event of our community is International Women's Day.

The main event for all Women Techmakers teams, WTM worldwide, takes place in March-April. The goal of this event is to share the latest approaches in the industry, share achievements, and inspire with compelling stories.

We also host “HR Emne DATE,” where we give the opportunity to meet with HR specialists from various tech companies. “Run” your resume past them and receive feedback and advice on how to improve it. This event helps solve the problem of difficulty in describing one’s qualities as a candidate. It also facilitates access to HR due to the complex hiring process common in many companies. There have already been several cases where participating companies “hunted” for participants from “HR Emne DATE.”

You can learn about all opportunities and events in advance on our Instagram page. We also create events, meetups, and workshops of various scales to meet the needs of our community and partners. If you have collaboration proposals, you can email us at wtm.kyrgyzstan@gmail.com.

How the community helps with development

Besides openly sharing opportunities, we support the growth of participants through creativity and the development of their ideas. For example, “HR Emne DATE” was born from one participant’s idea to organize a speed dating event. The AI Startups Fair at the last IWD was proposed by Dana as a creative way to introduce the community to companies. And Aidai developed her passion for UX/UI product design into a separate community — @usability.kg.

If you want to organize events, or have ideas and our community resonates with you — we would be happy to have you in our ranks!

Successful Projects

Most of our events involve collaboration: whether with the venue, individuals, or other initiatives. For example, we collaborated with the Journalist and Writers Foundation within the framework of InnovaSHEon — an event dedicated to the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. This event was held in Bishkek and broadcast from the UN office in New York.

The last International Women's Day in April this year was a collaboration between Women Techmakers and Google’s Developers Students Club KNU, with the support of Accelerate Prosperity, Aga Khan Foundation, and Turbine Kreuzberg.

Plans

WTM is preparing for an upcoming event that will definitely delight our followers. As we have been operating for almost five years, we have assembled a great team that can bring any idea to life. Thanks to the support of the community, ready to help us, we have a network of volunteers and potential venues where we can host events.

On average, it takes two to three months from an idea in the chat to “Welcome to our event.” So if WTM recently held an event — rest assured, we are already working on something new that will bring value and give you a great time!