Kolesa Conf’23: The First Bilingual IT Conference Took Place in Almaty

On October 7, Kolesa Group held its annual IT conference, Kolesa Conf, which brings together and develops the IT community of Kazakhstan. Developers, managers, data specialists, QA engineers, startup founders, and other representatives of the IT community from Kazakhstan and the CIS share their knowledge and experience there.

Over the course of one day, four tracks on IT topics were held: Management, Web, Data, and Mobile. More than 900 people attended the conference in person, while thousands watched the online format.

For the first time, an IT event of this scale was held in two languages. Kazakh-language presentations were organized across all four tracks of Kolesa Conf 2023. The organizers also provided simultaneous translation so that attendees could consume content in the language they are most comfortable with.

Six IT hubs across Kazakhstan organized live broadcasts of Kolesa Conf’23 at their locations. As a result, IT communities in the cities of Karaganda, Semey, Petropavlovsk, Turkistan, Zhanazhen, and Taldykorgan were able to watch the conference. For Kolesa Conf’23, speakers and guests flew in not only from CIS countries but also from the United States.

This year, Kolesa Conf'23 was also supported by other major companies, which made the conference even more interesting. The General Partner was Visa, and the partners were Citix and Lerna.

An improvised free coffee shop, photo zone, and various IT-themed activities were set up for offline attendees. Online viewers were not left out either: they also asked questions to the speakers and participated in games.

For conference attendees, the organizers filmed an episode of Kolesa Podcast and showed it during the main break between presentations. Winners, both offline and online, were awarded branded merchandise from Kolesa Conf’23 as well as prizes from the conference partners.