Over a fifteen hundred people have visited the Go Viral festival in Almaty in three days and have taken part in workshops, master classes and quests, expanding their networks and acquiring new knowledge.
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.
Once the festival is held in Almaty, participants took part in the quest on the city streets to preserve the historical landscape. During it, Andrei Pozdnyakov, guide-speaker, said how the architectural look of the city has changed from the beginning until now. The Soviet constructivism gave rise to a long period that informed cultural and political processes. The Stalin’s Empire style, late brutalism, orientalism, and polycentrism of the city became interesting topics for discussion and visual demonstration.
There was an unexpected excitement on the tour, with over 40 people wishing to participate in it, with the majority of native inhabitants. Many of them are increasingly concerned with the issues of urbanism and preservation of the historical heritage.
“I’ve been living in Almaty all my life and I realise that I don’t know everything about my home city. Every year, I have more desire to learn about the changes in the city’s image and to participate in its future. On the one hand, I understand that I want changes. I am not disturbed by new shopping malls and restaurants, but it is not worth sacrificing important historical monuments,” said participant Sanora.
The day before at the panel discussion of the present and future of the architectural look of Almaty, the audience along with the speakers shared their opinions about the details of the look of the southern capital of Kazakhstan. They spoke about the possibility to change the designation of the city and to preserve the historical look, and also discussed the reason why some buildings were demolished, and others do not fit in the total look.
“Our city is unique. It is unique in how people perceive it. Why do people take to the streets and defend some architectural sites? Because some buildings are important for them and they do want to preserve them. And our goal is to involve public so that they have a right to discuss such things,” Anel Moldakhmetova, producer of city projects, co-founder of CITYZEN space, and researcher of city architecture, said.
Kaizen and analysis
On Day 3, the business sector came to know the Kaizen philosophy. Kanat Mustafin, specialist of Kaizen Centre, carried out the relevant master class. During the session, a few games and activities were held to show the work of organisations from inside. The speaker told about the history of the philosophy, its peculiarities and strengths. The audience was involved in the discussion of the principles of Kaizen using simple examples of business.
“Everyone should take their place in a company. If one starts to perform other’s work, the process will fail. Kaizen is not about tools and fancy words, it’s about culture and what’s inside our minds. It is about creation of values for the customer. The goal is to avoid losses and leave only valuable things. Therefore, everyone should think about the customer and see valuable things on their own,” he said.
Rustem Bigari, general director of the Digital Government Support Centre, said about how to efficiently manage the company in the modern world. Using the example of e-government and e-workflow in education, he discussed the opportunities of digital transformation. Moreover, they discussed the evolution of management models in IT and some related everyday cases at the workshop.
“Everything revolves around the client in our sphere. To reach them, we need channels, products and technologies. And to improve the management system, we need to improve the processes. And that’s why different units have functions of the organisation. We analyse these functions and it’s critical for us to identify the prevailing type of the organisation – either processes, projects, or functional activity. We need this to stop employees from mocking and to ensure proper approach to every client,” he said.
A practical session was held for those interested in developing their business marketing strategy, yet have no money to hire an expert. Yesimkhan Zhalelov, performance marketing specialist of a Moscow-based advertising agency it-agency.ru, told about how to make a through report on advertising in Excel. He showed in practice the stages of preparing data, and which tools should be used.
IT and blockchain
For girls interested in IT, Aigerim Katayeva, product designer at ABR+, said how women should develop their career in this sphere and raised an important issue of gender stereotypes. According to her, in addition to age-old clichés that women are not enough qualified in this sphere, female representatives of IT sphere are often deprived of career ambitions. However, this problem exists not only in Kazakhstan or CIS, but across the world.
According to surveys held by McKinsey & Company, 34 per cent of global engineering audience in the world are women. This inequality in numbers leads to oppressions from the professional community. She said that it is important to seek one’s profession and dispel the myth that one needs to have programming skills to be in IT.
“To find and actualise yourself you first need to know English, monitor vacancies of global companies, master new tools, adapt quickly to changes, and, most importantly, to believe in yourself. If you listen to the society that tells you where to work, which goals and aspirations to have, you won’t be able to succeed and make your dreams come true,” Aigerim Katayeva said.
Blockchain was a separate topic for discussion. Rustem Nurbayev, CEO, Paxaro Education, told about what blockchain is and how to invest in cryptocurrencies. According to him, blockchain means decentralisation, when there is no unified regulator, and now we are moving to the growth stage, when this technology will be everywhere, which will ensure transparency of all processes. The speaker also advised how to choose cryptocurrency for investment, and also touched on the topic of blockchain technology security.
“Problems will always exist. They will always be resolved. The question is how efficiently they will be resolved. To make an attack, huge capacities are needed. The attack can be successful if you have over 50 per cent of capacities within your system. This option can work, otherwise it won’t,” he said.
Following the topic, Azat Bekmagambetov, co-founder of Pazaro Labs, told about how blockchain start-ups can develop in Kazakhstan. He said that the country has the intellectual potential for creating “unicorn” projects, but the problem is there are no specific investments.
The topic of NFT in art and its influence on ecology was also discussed. Konstantin Kudryashov, expert in this sphere, said about NFT possibilities, its environmental sustainability, as well as about NFT issues in Kazakhstan and in the world. Moreover, he said how NFT can be useful and how to achieve good results by means of it.
“I’ve learned many new things. I used to be sceptical about NFT because it was something incomprehensible, more for geeks, or something of the kind. But after the master class, I think I should use them. It doesn’t matter that I am only 15,” said Intisara, workshop participant.
At the panel discussions, the speakers discussed the perspectives of blockchain technology development and decentralisation, yet noted that the society is not prepared for it.
“Decentralisation and model of blockchain technologies fit very well in the democratic model of the state, where there’s the rule of the people, where everyone shape’s one’s future and everyone is responsible for decision-making and for further public future. Decentralisation distributes these opportunities and responsibilities between all society members. It works only when every community member makes a contribution,” said Temerlan Kaiyrzhanov, Operations Director of Paxaro Labs.
Fact-checking and podcasts
During Day 3, the community room of podcasters was available for all interested in podcasting, which were too many. The speakers and participants discussed the current situation and problems in the podcast market in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Podcasters also shared their experience of podcast starting and launching.
At the fact-checking session, participants could act as journalists searching for truth among several newsworthy events. Zhanserik Tileukhan, journalist of Factcheck.kz, in the real-time mode showed a range of tools that professionals use in their work to check photos, videos and information.
“Emotions and we, fact-checking journalists, often affect critical thinking. We should consider it during our work. For example, a few years ago, there was the news that the abnormal temperature, 65 degrees Celsius, was reported in Kuwait. And Kazakhstanis believed it because we psychologically perceive that it is very hot in Kuwait. However, further analysis suggested that it was fake news,” the speaker shared his experience.
In his closing speech at the Go Viral Festival in Almaty, Abakhon Sultonazarov, regional director of IWPR Central Asia office, expressed hope that the event expanded the network of specialists in media, business, technology, and culture, and also brought the young people together.
“The peculiar thing and the difference of this festival is that this year is has travelled along Central Asia and inspired the young people in our region for further development and cooperation to feel themselves as the one region,” he said.
And Anand Krishna, head of public affairs, culture and education, US Consulate General in Kazakhstan, reminded of the global goal of Go Viral – networking to resolve global and regional issues.
“We have global issues now – inequality, global warming, pandemic. But I remain optimistic. Thanks to you, your energy, your motivation, your ideas, we can finally find common ground and resolve all the issues,” he said.
Giving a start to the festival, Dastan Akkozha, Go Viral ambassador in Kazakhstan, made the first stitch on the chapan – the symbol of friendship for all festival participants. All those wishing added their stitches to the decoration on the chapan and finished it.
“Three days ago, this tambour frame was empty. I was a white canvas just like this tambour frame, which you used stitch by stitch. Each of you has touched it to decorate the chapan,” he said.
Now the symbol of the festival will travel to Ashgabat, where this year’s last Go Viral festival will be held on July 2.
After official speeches, the event was closed by performances of singers and DJs – Jordan, Majors, DJ Rustam Ospanoff, as well as a popular Kazakhstan band, Ninety One, which was welcomed with delight.
All three days of the Go Viral festival were intense, bright and emotional. More than 40 sessions on various topics, 66 speakers and more than one and a half thousand participants.
“I have attended the Go Viral from the very first day. And I am happy to see how it has developed. I think it’s a great opportunity for all Central Asian residents. Speeches by professionals from Almaty to Silicon Valley are the invaluable and free of charge assistance to beginning specialists and start-uppers. This is the opportunity not only to hang around, but also to find your community of likeminded people. I come from the older generation, and I am happy to see that our young people have a chance to express themselves and be heard. I believe the festival will help our region to become one integral community,” said participant of Go Viral-22 Elmira.
“The Go Viral Festival is my emerald find. It is full of people I haven’t met before. one can easily find like-minded people, their community here. And one of the key advantages of the festival is that the public here is very friendly and is open to everyone. Communication is the goal of the festival, I believe. I was bored during summer vacation, and I love to communicate. Therefore, I’ve decided to visit the festival and find new friends here. I liked it here and I will definitely visit Go Viral next year,” said Bisara, participant of the Go Viral 2022 festival.
“It was a pleasure to attend all days of the festival, I’ve learned many new things. I was delighted to see the performances of Kazakh-language speakers who delivered their speeches on “Kazakh poetry in the modern society” and “How to build a loyal community around yourself?” dedicated to the popularisation of literary and beautiful Kazakh language. I work in this sphere, so it’s very important for me to make more people want to speak and think in their mother tongue,” said Zhanserik, participant of Go Viral 2022 festival.
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.