Day 2 of the Go Viral Festival gathered over five hundred enthusiasts, experts, specialists and all those who want to learn something new, change and self-develop.
Workshops and master classes, presentations and panel discussions on business, media, technologies and cultures held by cool speakers gathered full spaces of active participants. Day 2 of the festival is the most intensive, and topics vary from investigations and personal brands to game development and cybersecurity.
Go Viral Festivals have been held since 2017. Previously, the events had been held in Kazakhstan only, but this year it’s the first time when the festival travels across Central Asia. In May, the Go Viral festival started in Dushanbe, then in Tashkent and Bishkek, and now Almaty has taken up the baton. Then, the festival will be held in Ashgabat.
The topic of this year is “Search. Invent. Solve”. The programme is built on the idea that creative inspiration is within us. We need to start cooperating within the region by taking a close look at every country and revising old decisions.
The offline NFT exhibition of modern art is held during the festival, where works of young Kazakhstan artists are displayed. You can not only watch them, but also buy the work in NFT format together with the original. Buyers will also have the right to use the image, and to resell it.
Along with it, the workshop was held for visual content creators about the new way of preserving the heritage and income. This session was such in high demand and participants were willing to stand in the hall only to listen to the speakers. Representatives of Obscura.kz Maksat Bekes and Gleb Abdullin introduced the NFT technology to beginners, told about interesting projects in Kazakhstan, and also helped them open their wallet, and showed how to create NFT projects.
During the workshop, participants drew the picture together and turned it into NFT and gifted it to all participants.
“I am planning to enrol at a foreign university to a major related to IT and NFT. So this master class was very useful for me. I have learned many new terms, about interesting and useful projects developing in our country. I think this direction needs to be developed as it is very useful for our young people,” said Daniya, festival participant.
Businesses and changes
Today the world is changing so fast that one should be flexible and keep abreast. According to Ainura Koshoyeva, chief of HR department of the Tele2/Altel joint company, businesses should revise their strategy at least once in six months. She said how to be stable in such unsteady times and explained the human psychological development model, and said at what stage it is better to make certain changes.
“The world is incomprehensible and everyone has a right to say “I don’t know”. Now it becomes normal to admit it. We are living in the world where no previous experience can help. We need to be like surfers. They cannot control the waves, but they can control themselves,” she said.
Much time was dedicated to the business theme on Day 2 of Go Viral. The Startup Expo was held on the big stage, the event meant to popularise start-up ecosystems. Participants could get a feedback from business angels. Every start-upper had three minutes for a pitch and two more minutes for the questions and answers session.
Representatives of Plug and Play Tech Centre held a session for those who wanted to expand their start-ups and take them to the U.S. market. The company helps new projects to scale and enter the foreign market. According to Zhaina Sultanova, programme manager of Plug and Play Tech Centre, over 2,000 start-ups go through their acceleration programme every year.
Moreover, speakers told about how to prepare for scaling, which measures should be taken beforehand and what should be considered. They also shared life hacks of entering the U.S. market.
“If your purpose is to attract investments, the first thing you should do in the U.S. is to register in Delaware. It’s very important for investors to know the jurisdiction you belong to. The Delaware jurisdiction is today the most popular among start-ups. It will be easier for you to raise investments if you are registered there because it will be comfortable for investors to work with you,” said Meruert Kenessova, venture analyst of Plug and Play Tech Centre.
Sergei Lopatin, organiser and host of game events, spoke about businesses on the edge of creativity at his workshop. He told about how games are developed, where investments come from, and at what stage this sphere is in Central Asia. He also shared recommendations for beginners who want to develop their own game on how to begin.
“I am not a developer, but I play games, and I was interested in listening to how it works inside, to what developers encounter, to look at the game process from their point of view. As we have few developers in CIS, especially in Central Asia, it was interesting to know how this sphere develops here,” Dmitry, workshop participant, said.
At the presentation of Dana Kamzabek, participants could play a board game TEZTAP offline as part of a big team and check their knowledge. The speaker told about how she created it, what difficulties she encountered and how she overcame them.
“Many questions were absolutely new to me and I’ve learned many useful things in this game. The game is very interesting and useful as it helps expand our horizons. Moreover, the game was held in Kazakh language, which contributes to the development of Kazakh language and Kazakh-speaking young people,” participant Aidana said.
Patents and communities
At the master class “Intellectual property. How to secure your project”, Donald Townsend, senior commercial officer of USFCS in the U.S. Consulate Almaty, said about the ways of protection of intellectual property, why it is important, and how to attract investors to your product.
“I think it’s critical for entrepreneurs and start-uppers to know how to protect their intellectual property and how to attract more venture investments. If you don’t patent your intellectual property, protect it on time, anyone can take it from you or steal it easily. Unfortunately, today it happens all across the world. The master class was very interesting. The speaker is a real expert in intellectual property protection,” said Kendrick D. White, advisor to ALMA University president.
Aleksandra Akkirman, regional manager in corporate relations, communications and sustainable development projects, Coca Cola Kazakhstan, said why companies need to be socially responsible. She explained what direction to choose and how to build the strategy. According to her, the company of any size can have corporate social responsibility that can affect the brand reputation both within the community and among employees.
“People don’t work for money, but for the idea, for the goal. Especially, it’s true for major corporations. The bigger the corporation, the smaller the person feels oneself. There should be some mission. If it is in place, people are more loyal to the company, more interested in their jobs,” she said.
At the workshop dedicated to building the company’s image the speaker was Aidana Toktarkyzy, director of HR and marketing department of MOST Holding. In her opinion, sincerity is now the main way to gain confident of consumers. To prove her words, she referred to high-profile scandals related to major corporations that betrayed the trust of people. She mentioned such brand names as Elizabeth Holmes (fraud actions of her company Theranos), Amazon (toxic environment among employees), and Uber (increasing rates during pickets and peaceful protests).
Based on these cases, the speaker offered a simple formula to participants to minimise the damage to the brand after a bad incident. The must-dos are: to admit the mistake, to apologise sincerely, and to cope with the consequences. Based on this algorithm, workshop participants were offered to reconcile the incident based on a made-up scenario.
“Indeed, sometimes the conflict must be resolved at the grassroots not to spoil the impression. Therefore, most people first try to hide everything. But nowadays it doesn’t work. With the internet, all secrets will sooner or later become revealed and the conflict will get even worse, which is a disaster for any company. I liked that we studied real cases,” Aliya, workshop participant, said.
At the presentation by Bibarys Seitak, founder of Kazak Babyl project, participants learned how to build a loyal community around oneself. He told how his team and he managed to popularise his Kazakh language grammar and vocabulary project. According to him, the reason was in the non-standard approach to content. Very often, topics that go beyond the generally accepted limits arise during a case study or word origin history. He said that when speaking to his audience about unconventional themes and discussing relevant issues, the project team keeps to the principles that help them maintain loyal relations.
“There is so much hate and bullying on the internet, it is widespread as this is the human psychology. They think that cultural behaviour rules do not apply to the internet domain. A person cannot say something rude to another person right to the face, but he cannot stop doing it when sitting in front of the monitor. Therefore, to suppress this toxic environment, we should increase the involvement to shape the loyalty in the audience. We also need to break the cycle of abuse that encourages toxic environment, and one should always be loyal to oneself and one’s principles,” said Bibarys Seitak.
Investigations and Telegram channels
The workshop of Vyacheslav Abramov, general director of Vlast.kz internet outlet, sparked much interest among participants. He told about the genre of investigative journalism and explained the most important aspects of their performance and principles of work. The speaker also explained the significance of fact-checking, which can help avoid problems and save oneself harmless. He also noted that investigation is a complex genre, which is worth working in.
“Investigative journalism reveal the most troubled aspects of the society. Our goal is to raise awareness, but journalism can also explain, suggest, keep track of what goes wrong,” he said.
The media sector may be of interest not only to journalists, but to all who run social media accounts and tell stories. Gulnar Nauryzbai, editor and media manager, told about journalistic techniques. She shared techniques of creating interesting texts and self-presentation, and also showed a special service that helps clean the text from verbal garbage. The participants tried to use their knowledge in practice and tell about themselves.
“I liked the workshop for its content, briefness, precision, and honesty. Now I want to use all the knowledge in my work as I am a beginning journalist and have worked for three months in the editorial staff. I want to self-develop because I know that at some points I don’t have enough knowledge. I should not stop, moreover there’s an opportunity to learn everything for free at the Go Viral,” said Zhanibek, student of the journalism department.
And Nazgul Kozhabek, editor-in-chief of Steppe&World and author of the Telegram channel “Kalkasyz kazak tili”, told the participants about main rules of running a Kazakh-language project on Telegram. Based on her own experience of running an educational project, she honestly shared her experience of failures, monetisation and explained why she immediately turned off comments for users.
“I am running my small Telegram channel myself. I have a small audience, so it was important for me to hear the opinion of such a professional speaker as Nazgul Kozhabek. I started my project in Kazakh language and keep running it because I am sure that we should actively develop the culture of using our mother tongue in all spheres of our life,” said Akdariga, workshop participant.
Literature and book industry
At the presentation of “Kazakh poetry in the modern society”, participants discussed the changes that have occurred to the Kazakh-language literary art nowadays. For four years, the country has held sessions of modern art “Tauel(di)siz”, where young progressive poets experiment with the forms of poetic style. Poetry spouting turns into full-fledged performances with dances, music, computer technologies. According to the speaker of presentation, Ruslan Zhubanych, young progressive poets prefer to raise such brave topics in their art as linguistic issues, women’s rights, independence, pandemic, war and peace issues.
“It is important to speak about relevant agenda, but it does not mean that we have stopped to speak about eternal things. We continue to talk about patriotism, love and friendship. The Kazakh literature and culture in general have transformed and enriched with new denotations and tools of expression,” Ruslan Zhubanysh said.
Also, the festival participants discussed how to become a publisher. The main thing is to acquire necessary knowledge and steadily move towards your goal, according to Raisa Sairan-Kadyr, director and founder of Alghayat literary agency and Steppe&World publishing house. At the presentation, participants learned the things that should be in mind before entering the publishing business.
According to Raisa Sairan-Kadyr, there are four stages of book production:
- Find a good story that you want to share with the world;
- Reach a deal with the author, their heirs or agents for publication;
- Get a team to prepare and print the edition;
- Final check of all personal names and titles for correctness.
“A few years ago I dreamt of running my own publishing business to let me read Harry Potter in Kazakh language to my son. And my striving has provided the Kazakhstanis now, 15 years later, with the world’s bestsellers in their mother tongue, including Harry Potter,” the speaker said.
Films and animation
A separate community room was open most of the day for those who were interested in filmmaking. Mariya Abadiyeva, scriptwriter, director, film instructor in Step Clap film school, and director of international children’s and youth film festival “Dreamer”, was telling all the time about how to write scenarios to animation projects, and held a master class on production. Participants tried to fantasise, draw characters, and experiment.
At the master class “48 hour film race”, the speakers told about the like-names project, where young film teams could try hand at filmmaking. The contest requirement is to make a film in 48 hours within the limits (characters, things, phrases).
The speakers discussed opportunities available for amateurs, students and professionals. They also advised on how to make films, and told the main principles of a successful work. They emphasised that the project has become a source of teams that become successful in filmmaking later.
“Why take part in our contest? As a person who has gone through it, I can say it’s a fun! It is a pleasure to work as part of an interesting team. You test yourself for strength, and then you come to a film theatre and see the outcome of your work. Believe me, it is worth it,” said Alan Talkenov, director and creative director of the “48 Hour film race” contest.
At the end of Day 2, Andrei Manuilov, head of the Central Asian contest of short films, 48 Hour Film Race, and Alan Talkenov told about the 48HFR project and presented TOP films of the 48HFR for 6 years.
This year the festival in Almaty was supported by KIMEP, Chevron company, MOST business incubator, Bes Saiman Group, The Batyrkhan Shukenov Fund, 48 Hour Film Race short films contest, Obscura, Bes Saiman Group and Econetwork, as well as Almaty Space and MakerSpace. Media partners: WeProject and Baribar online outlets.
Go Viral is a platform for sharing experience, a community of representatives of media, business, culture and technologies in Central Asian states, and the annual regional festival. The project is funded by the Department of State with the support of American diplomatic missions in Central Asian states. From October 2021, the project is implemented by the Institute for War&Peace Reporting (IWPR) Central Asia, whose programmes and events are held across the region.