The forum "Women Shaping the Startup Ecosystem" took place in Tashkent.

According to the 2025 annual report by Founders Forum, Women in VC & Startup Funding, out of $289 billion in venture capital investments attracted by startups worldwide in 2024, only 2.3% — $6.7 billion — went to teams consisting exclusively of female founders, while mixed teams attracted 14.1% of the capital.

The forum takes place against the backdrop of rapid growth in the country's technology sector: Uzbekistan's IT services exports reached nearly $1 billion in 2025 — a thousand times more than in 2017. In 2026, the international platform StartupBlink recognized Uzbekistan as the world's fastest-growing startup ecosystem, with a growth rate of 227%. However, according to a study by the U-Enter center and ERGO Analytics, presented in 2025, women make up only 8% of technology startup founders in the country.

Despite this gap, successful projects led by women are already emerging in Uzbekistan. The educational platform Osnova, co-founded by Kamila Uzakova, has attracted over 150,000 users, secured $350,000 in investments, and completed the UzVC and Techstars Founder Catalyst programs. FemTech startup Femmy, founded by Mafturnakhon Karimova, became the first local solution in the field of women's health in the country, completed the UzCombinator pre-acceleration program, and attracted $55,000 from Aloqa Ventures and Yoshlar Ventures.

The Women Shaping the Startup Ecosystem forum continues this work, bringing together active startup founders, leaders of technology companies, and representatives of government structures to discuss the journey from idea to sustainable business.

Participants in the forum included a representative of IT Park, BILLZ CEO Rustam Khamdamov, Coursera regional representative Larissa Whitcroft, Green Initiatives Fund representative at the Agency for Youth Affairs Gulirono Mamirova, and IKIGAI PROMOTION representative Sergey Konev.

Participants discussed the transition of Uzbek IT exports from outsourcing to creating competitive products, barriers hindering the development of the local startup ecosystem, the role of women in technology and green entrepreneurship, and how artificial intelligence is changing requirements for teams, the labor market, and access to entrepreneurship.

The Women Shaping the Startup Ecosystem forum is part of the systematic work of the Ministry of Digital Technologies of the Republic of Uzbekistan, IT Park, and partners to expand the participation of girls and women in the IT sector and startup ecosystem. One of the key projects of this work is the women's IT club GAP Women IT Union, created to provide training, mentoring, enhance digital literacy, and support women on their path to implementing their own technology ideas.

The ministry views the involvement of women in IT and entrepreneurship not as a separate initiative, but as a necessary condition for the sustainable growth of Uzbekistan's digital economy. Creating conditions under which every woman with an idea can gain knowledge, mentorship, and practical tools for its implementation remains one of the ministry's priority areas of activity.