"STARTUPHANA is held to support the community of entrepreneurs and specialists in the field of information technology who work on developing Kazakh content in the IT sphere and forming the Kazakh-language IT culture. The fact that Kazakh-language IT products have their place in society and are in demand among the audience demonstrates their competitiveness. At the same time, it is nice to see that our talented young people, in general, are striving for self-realization in the IT industry", - Bagdat Musin, Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry, noted at the opening ceremony of the forum.

At the forum, successful IT entrepreneurs and professionals, bloggers, and motivators shared their experiences in business and digital fields and discussed topics of startups, marketing, NFT, etc.

For example, IT specialist Maksat Kadyrov, who went abroad in 2016 and "conquered" Silicon Valley, and now works as a senior engineer at LinkedIn in the United States, gave a presentation about his experience in achieving success in the IT sphere based on Kazakh proverbs.

"Our country now has a variety of tools for IT experts, as well as good conditions. For example, the Astana Hub is one of these tools. If I had such opportunities at the time, I would not have gone to another country. "Esin barda, elindi tap" our ancestors used to say. I decided to leave LinkedIn and return to Kazakhstan", - Maksat Kadyrov said, sharing his plans for his future work, to which he received a standing ovation from the audience.

Other speakers were Abylaikhan Kamaladin - CEO of QAMALLADIN bloggers agency; Azat Yessenov - managing partner of the international consulting firm Yessen & Company; Jiger Kairatuly - product manager of cloud and satellite technologies TTS; Farhad Moldash - content maker, professional photographer, and blogger, Birzhan Ashim - well-known Instagram and Youtube-blogger, actor, entrepreneur, and others.

IT researcher, author, and designer of the magazine in the Kazakh language "IT-tirlik" Timur Bektur connected online from Boston (USA) and talked about how to become an innovator in IT. Speakers from Astana Hub, Daulet Beimurzinov and Ashimbek Abilgazinov, spoke about how to create and develop IT startups and what Astana Hub programs can help young tech entrepreneurs in this.

"STARTUPHANA is the first major IT festival in Astana to be held in Kazakh, so I am honored to speak here. I hope that there will be more events like this. I'm sure it will positively impact our common future," said Aidana Kaskyrbek, one of the forum speakers and the head of the NBRK blockchain center.

"I found out about STARTUPHANA on social media, and I'm glad I got here. There were interesting speakers; I discovered a lot about the possibilities in IT, which will be very useful to me in the future", - Ali Konysov, one of the forum participants, shared his impressions.

As a reminder, the organizer of the Digital Fest STARTUPHANA is an International Technopark of IT startups Astana Hub, with the support of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan.