IT community from Central Asia: Wonder Women

Rada Islamova, city — Almaty, founder of Wonder Women, Instagram

About the community

The idea for the community emerged in February 2019, and the first meeting took place in April of that same year. At the time, I was working as a top manager at the ChocoFamily holding company and noticed how many women approached me with questions about how to manage a team and take initiative. This inspired me to create the Wonder Women lecture series, where I invited successful women from various professions as speakers to share their journeys. We met every three weeks, but then COVID-19 began, and the meetings stopped. In the second half of 2020, I realized that I wanted to fully focus on developing Wonder Women.

On April 1, 2021, I concluded my career in the corporate sector and launched an educational initiative within Wonder Women — a mentorship program for women in Central Asia. I saw that many women lacked the internal "push" to take action. When you are surrounded like-minded women, when the strongest female experts from our region, who share your mentality and understand the specifics of Eastern countries, are right next to you, the likelihood increases that you will become braver, more decisive, and gain clear tools to achieve your professional goals and take decisive action. 

In 2021, considering the pandemic and the desire to expand the project across all of Central Asia, we began creating a unified platform for women in this region. The main goal of the program is to support women in their professional realization, whether it is launching a startup, building a career path in a corporation, developing a social project, or changing career directions.

Over three years, we received 2,000 applications for participation, and 156 women from 140 cities and 36 countries were accepted. I personally read each one and conducted about 400 video interviews.

As soon as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, we resumed offline meetings — WWTalks — and began holding them in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. We organize various formats — from large events with 100-350 participants to intimate meetings with 15 attendees.

In total, over five years, we have held about 30 meetings, featuring around 40 experts and leaders in their fields — both women and men. WWtalks has been attended by more than 3,000 women.

The mission of Wonder Women from 2019 to 2024 was: we unite women and help them transition from inspiration to action. Today, we are moving to a new stage, and our mission has been updated. We strive to form a new generation of female leaders in Central Asia. This is our main focus until 2030, so we have created a separate educational track that includes our offline meetings, Wonder Women Talks, and educational programs — Wonder Women leadership — in all countries of our region.

The second direction is an online platform — our Instagram page, wonderwomenhub, where we initially announced meetings back in 2019. Gradually, it transformed, and now on this platform, we discuss women's issues in a creative and stylish format. We call ourselves "peaceful warriors" and focus on positive and inspiring examples from around the world and, of course, Central Asia.

We implement cool and heartfelt special projects with local and international brands, international organizations, and quasi-state sectors.

Our community sets several key tasks, among which the main one is considered to be comprehensive support for women in their professional realization and the formation of a new generation of female leaders. 

We understand that for successful professional growth, it is also necessary to pay attention to one's internal state. Our leadership program, Wonder Women Leadership, includes elements of work on the body, spirit, and mind, so that all these aspects are harmoniously developed.

Also, we involve men in our agenda. We show examples of how men can support women on their professional path — from fathers, brothers, spouses to colleagues, friends, or managers.

Community members

Our target audience consists of women who are already professionally realized and striving for growth and development. We focus on female managers, as well as any woman wishing to grow professionally. Within the framework of our mission, we are forming a new generation of female leaders, working with the age group of 24-32 years, but also accepting women from 18 to 45 years into the group. We want to support young women who show good results in companies and entrepreneurship, so that they become an inspiration for high school students and university students.

Events for community members

We have two directions within the Wonder Women Leadership educational program. The first is a one-month program that helps manage one's internal state and maintain professionalism, avoiding stress. The second program is a three-month program oriented towards managers.

We also hold offline meetings in Tashkent and Almaty, as well as organize events throughout Uzbekistan and are open to cooperation in Central Asia.

How the community helps with development

In our community, we create unique tools, including networking, which attracts both mentors and experts, as well as beginning professionals. We have four key values: trust, responsibility, honesty, and empowerment. These values attract amazing people and create an atmosphere where everyone strives to communicate and interact.

Although we do not yet have a club system, participants of the educational programs automatically become part of the alumni club. We hold offline meetings so that women can meet and expand their connections. Over the nearly four years of existence of the mentorship program, many women have found like-minded people, created collaborations, and formed friendships, which for me is already a significant achievement.

Successful projects

In March of this year, we implemented a special project with "Yandex.Pro Kazakhstan," in which we told the story of female taxi drivers. This is an example of how important it is to support the professional development of women in the most diverse fields, not only in currently popular directions like IT or entrepreneurship. We showcased female drivers who have a flexible schedule and can combine work with family responsibilities. They love their jobs, provide for themselves, their families, and children, and feel confident on the road. This proves that every profession matters.

We also filmed a series of cool videos with Magnum and Wolt in Kazakhstan, showing women working in these companies — their professional growth within the companies, their aspirations, achievements, and results.

A case I am proud of is the special project with the Kotex brand, which launched in spring 2023, simultaneously in two countries — Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In Kazakhstan, the key component was a digital campaign, while in Uzbekistan, we were also supported by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Innovation. We filmed a series of inspiring video clips for each country and organized offline WWTalks meetings. In Uzbekistan, we traveled to the regions and spoke in Samarkand and Fergana. The key message of the special project was to change stereotypical thinking about the role of a woman — only as a wife, only as a mother, and only as a keeper of the home. Through the examples of six heroines, we showed women of different ages, professions, and marital statuses, united by one thing — the courage to act and realize themselves in their professions and beloved endeavors. 

Another project, for example, was initiated by the Ministry of School Education of Uzbekistan. It aims to inspire girls after school to enter university, acquire a profession, and learn to balance different roles, rather than striving only to get married as soon as possible. We filmed touching videos with five girls sharing their dreams and ambitions. 

As partners of IT Park Uzbekistan, we played a key role in organizing the incubation and acceleration programs Tumaris Tech for women in IT. We provided 80% of the experts who spoke at the program and actively supported the participants. After the first wave of incubation/acceleration, we also helped the organizing team with improving communication with participants and shared the experience of our mentorship program. This cooperation was important for us and, hopefully, brought great benefits to all participants, inspiring them for further development and realization of their ideas. 

All these projects are important to us; we put our hearts into them. We believe that through creativity and collaborations with brands, we can inspire women and create positive changes in society.

Plans

We will continue to develop both directions — the educational block of Wonder Women Leadership and the content platform Wonder Women Hub. We will conduct both offline and online activities throughout Central Asia, aimed at comprehensive support for women of various professions.  

To contact us and join, follow our accounts https://www.instagram.com/wonderwomenhub/ and https://www.instagram.com/wwleadership?igsh=MTF0dWFydno3MGRqYg==. 

You can write to us in direct messages or via email at info.wonderwomen@gmail.com. 

We are always open to offers and cooperation.