The opening of the forum was also attended by Prime Minister Askar Mamin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration Yerlan Koshanov, Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Bagdat Musin, as well as representatives of other ministries, heads of banks and national companies.

Domestic IT companies Sergek, Cerebra, Roqed Science, Med365, OKO, Bilimland, Connected Home, Good Places presented their digital solutions during the meeting.

The President noted that it is important to focus not only on meeting the demand of the state and quasi-state sectors, but also to bring Kazakhstani IT products to international markets. “Export of IT solutions can and should become one of the most important areas of diversification of the domestic economy. We have already taken the first steps. Today at the exhibition we saw competitive IT products, as well as strong young IT teams. They should be helped in every possible way,” the Head of State said.

The results of the activity of the international technopark of IT start-ups Astana Hub were presented by the CEO Magzhan Madiev.

Currently, 558 IT companies are residents of Astana Hub, 54 of which are foreign. Over the three years of operation, startups have earned 166 billion tenge and attracted 48.4 billion tenge of investments, grants and loans. Thanks to tax incentives, IT companies saved 14.9 billion tenge.

It is expected that by the end of the year, through the efforts of Astana Hub, another 90 IT companies of Kazakhstan will be brought to international markets, and the total volume of exports of IT services by technopark residents in 2021 will amount to 50 billion tenge (in 2020 - 14.3 billion tenge).

Astana Hub does a great job of popularizing IT entrepreneurship, attracting talent, as well as their further training and support for IT startups. Over the 3 years of operation, the audience of the IT technopark in the media and social networks has exceeded 21 million users, more than 1,000 events have been held for 55,000 listeners, more than 10,000 people have been trained in the basics of business in IT, 849 startups have been released as part of incubation, 232 startups - acceleration.

A separate part of the presentation was devoted to the training of IT specialists. In September 2021, Astana Hub launched the Tech Orda program - financing of private IT schools across the country, within which, by the end of this year, 100 students across the country will be able to take training courses in IT specialties at the expense of the state, worth 600,000 tenge each. Already next year, the number of quotas will be increased to 2,000, and by 2025, thanks to the program, it is planned to train up to 20,000 IT personnel.

“In highly developed countries, the proportion of human capital is up to 80% of their national wealth. That is, technological talents are “new oil” and Astana Hub “explores” and “produces” IT talents. It is thanks to the increase in the critical mass of IT specialists that it is possible to ensure the growth of exports of Kazakhstani IT products and the development of the industry as a whole,” said Magzhan Madiyev.

The CEO of Astana Hub emphasized that in the next 5 years, the technopark will continue to take active steps to increase the export of IT services to $500 million, increase investment in the industry to 500 billion tenge, and also contribute to the training of highly qualified IT specialists throughout Kazakhstan.

Recall that the international technology forum Digital Bridge is held with the support of Kazakhtelecom JSC, BTS Digital, Tengizchevroil and Transtelecom.