For the first time at the conference, complex technical reports were delivered in two languages simultaneously

On October 7, the Kolesa Group held the next annual IT conference Kolesa Conf, which unites and develops the IT community of Kazakhstan. Where developers, managers, data specialists, QA engineers, startups and other representatives of the IT community of Kazakhstan and the CIS share their knowledge and experience.

In one day, four streams were held in IT areas: Management, Web, Data and Mobile. The offline conference was attended by over 900 people, the online format was watched by thousands of viewers.

For the first time, an IT event of this scale was held in two languages. Kazakh-language reports were organized on all four streams of the Kolesa Conf 2023. The organizers have also provided simultaneous translation so that people can consume content in a language that is more familiar to their perception. 

6 IT hubs across Kazakhstan organized live broadcasts of Kolesa Conf’23. So the conference was watched by the IT communities of the cities: Karaganda, Semey, Petropavlovsk, Turkestan, Zhanaozen and Taldykorgan. Speakers and guests arrived not only from the CIS countries, but also from the USA especially at the Kolesa Conf’23.

The head of the Training and Development Department of the Kolesa Group, Kristina Abdraimova, was one of the organizers of the landmark event:

"For the fifth year in a row, we have been holding the Kolesa Conf, the largest IT conference in Kazakhstan. This year it has reached a new level — for the first time the conference was held in two languages: Russian and Kazakh.

Our platform brings together representatives of different IT companies and provides a unique opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience. I am sure that each participant will bring something new and useful to their projects thanks to our conference, and there will be even more cool IT products in Kazakhstan," Kristina Abdraimova said.

This year, Kolesa Conf'23 was supported by other large companies, thanks to which the conference became even more interesting. The general partner is Visa, the partners are Citix and Lerna.

"We are pleased to support one of the largest conferences bringing together thousands of talented representatives of the IT industry in the country. At Visa, we strive to help companies of any size develop their business through innovative solutions and technologies. Among the important initiatives in this direction is the annual global competition for startups Visa Everywhere Initiative. Within its framework, participants present their advanced products to solve the problems of the future in the field of payments and commerce. We hope that in the new wave of the competition we will see a large number of applications from Kazakhstani startups," says Sanzhar Suleymanov, Director of the Visa Direct platform in Central Asia and Azerbaijan.

A free improvised coffee shop, a photo zone, as well as IT-themed activities and not only were equipped for offline viewers. But online viewers were not deprived of attention either: they also asked questions to speakers, participated in games.

Kirill Mokevnin, co-founder of the Hexlet online programming school, spoke as a speaker of the Web stream:

"Kolesa Conf is a great platform for the exchange of knowledge, experience and practices. The organization was at the highest level: from logistics to the timing of reports. The speakers and their reports were of a high level and on interesting, catchy topics.

Separately, I want to cancel the audience — the engagement was amazing. I received a lot of feedback after my performance, which is always very valuable. I am grateful to the organizers for inviting me to come and speak. I hope that visiting the Kolesa Conf will become an annual good tradition for me," Kirill Mokevnin said.

The audience of Kolesa Conf’23 shared their impressions of the conference.

"Conferences like Kolesa Conf are an undoubted plus for the entire market of Kazakhstan. Because at one time many people in our country wanted to become oilmen, not programmers. And Kazakhstan missed the stage of rapid development of IT, as it happened earlier, for example, in Ukraine and Belarus. And the fact that IT is actively developing in the country now is very cool and useful. I hope such events will help to increase the share of the IT sector in the country's GDP, which is currently quite small," said Andrey Chebotarev, financial analyst and author of the Telegram channel FINANCEkaz.

"Thank you to the Kolesa Team for bringing together a cool IT community with top speakers from the best IT companies in the CIS every year. Due to this, you can expand your horizons: find out how startups and corporations are moving. The organization is at the highest level, every year it gets better, a vivid confirmation of this — tickets are sold out very quickly," said Saltanat Januzakova, Director of Product Development of Beeline Kazakhstan.

"Kolesa Conf is useful for absolutely everyone. I think that those who are older came here for networking, and those who are younger - for knowledge. I think that all the cool things happen outside the conference rooms: there is a lot of communication, dating, and exchange of experience in the common room. I will come to the Kolesa Conf every year," Azamat Kalmurzaev, Head of Engineering at STRONG, shared his impressions.

Especially for the audience of the conference, the organizers filmed the release of the Kolesa Podcast and showed it in a big break between reports. The winners, both offline and online, were awarded with branded merchandise from Kolesa Conf’23, as well as prizes from the conference partners.