Female Startup: a project aimed at reducing unemployment

Today, 25-year-old Ummatoy Yuldasheva, co-founder and CTO of the GradUz project, is the guest of IT Park. Ummatoy also works as a CTO at Alulastra and teaches students at AKFA University.

She recalls that the launch of the project became possible due to the difficulties that students most often face after graduation.

“When we discussed ideas for a startup project with the founder of the project, we decided that the topic should be related to students. We talked about the difficulty of finding a job. Then the founder of the project suggested creating a startup that solves these problems. The project aroused great interest in me, and we started working on a startup together.”

The GradUz project aims to improve the quality of education and significantly reduce unemployment. What distinguishes this project from others is that it not only improves the quality of education, but also helps young people to set goals and implement their own projects in any field.

“According to statistics, in 2020, 41% of university graduates were employed after graduation. Of these 41% of students, 33.8% work outside their specialty. On average, 73.2% of students remained unemployed, and 17% of students in Uzbekistan will only be able to find a job within a year after graduation,” says Ummatoy.

Benefits of the GradUz startup

Ummatoy recalls that, at the initial stage the project had to face some difficulties.

“At the very beginning of the project, it was difficult to find young people willing to work with us on the project. But later we managed to assemble a team. Word of a true if I say that this was our biggest achievement because every member of the team is capable and very mobile. Each participant has contributed a lot, without their help the project would not have been able to reach such a level.”

The struggle with the difficulties was worth it - now the benefits of the project are colossal, Ummatoy continues. Startup goals:

• improving the work experience of each student;

• identification and development of talented students;

• use student demographics to group students by interest;

• interdisciplinary collaboration for leaders;

• training from professional trainers;

• feedback from mentors;

• creation of a competitive platform for students, where they can reveal their potential and gain experience;

“One of the main functions of the platform is networking between students. The platform makes it possible to speed up the process of information exchange, learn from talented young people, and get the support of coaches. We have attracted various specialists to the project who share the experience of their country with the students of Central Asia, which creates an opportunity for the exchange of experience between countries.”

Now, in addition to Ummatoy, 10 people are involved in the project,

• CEO Shokhruh Karimov - motivator and founder of the project, with extensive experience in the non-profit sector

• Lead Product Designer — Kamola Zhasurbekova

• Assistant Product Designer — Rakhimova Dilorom

• Full Stack Developer — Mahmudjon Inadullayev

• Consultant — Munira Begmurotova

• Software Engineer — Nodira Ibrogimova

• Frontend developer — Saodat Sadirbayeva

• Programmer — Davronbek Achilov

• Marketing Manager – Nargiza Khodjaeva

• SMM - Shakhnoza Kholdorova

Development of the GradUz project

As Ummatoy admits, the most difficult thing in the process of working on a project was to separate the necessary and unnecessary ideas from the project, and then correctly form the necessary ones.

“Probably, it’s the biggest difficulty any startup experiences at the beginning of its journey. However, if you know the goal, know how to separate the necessary from the unnecessary, success is guaranteed. Now we have already overcome difficult stages and are moving forward. We finance the project ourselves, we have not yet received investments, but actively working on it.”

According to Ummatoy, over the past 2-3 years, the startup ecosystem in Uzbekistan has been developing by leaps and bounds, and now there are many successful projects operating in the country. The main thing, the girl notes, is not to remake an already successful existing project. Re-introducing a completed startup to the public without adding additional features that do not change the idea will not make the startup successful, Ummatoy added.

“I think that the startup industry will achieve great success in Uzbekistan in the next 5 years. The development and rapid growth of the IT sector has had a significant impact on the world of startups. Thanks to the Tumaris.Tech project, we had the opportunity to meet many startups in Central Asia, as well as trackers who offer cooperation and mentors who share their experience. We are especially grateful to the tracker from Tajikistan, Sherali Jurabaev, for his huge contribution to our development, we are grateful to him for his support, empathy, useful recommendations, and simply for the fact that he always inspired our team at the development stage of the project.”

GradUz became a finalist for the Euro Asia Startup Awards (the largest competition without a pitch and a conference, designed for startups - ed.) and got the opportunity to present the project on October 17 in Turkey.

“Our project reached the international final, and despite the fact that we did not win, we are pleased that the finalists were invited to Turkey. We are very proud of this success, it is a big breakthrough for us. My advice to young startups is to form the right team, as well as select the right team members. Make every effort, and then everything will definitely work out”.