Female Startup: Promotion Platform for native language

The Female Startup edition on IT Park’s website pages only a month ago, but has already become one of the most favorite among our subscribers. As part of the column, we talk about projects created by females. This time we would like to introduce Marjan Mizinbayeva from Kazakhstan and her project Audaru.com.

Where did it all start?

Marzhan, 28, works as an interpreter, translator and marketer at the translation agency Translators Group and as a manager at startup Audaru.

As often happens, the idea to create a project came from a problem that Marjan herself and her colleagues faced.

“The translators of our agency working with the Kazakh language experienced a problem with insufficient resources in the Kazakh language. All terms, technical specialized literature had to be translated first into Russian, and then into English, or from English into Russian, and only after that into Kazakh. It took a significant amount of time."

Then Indira, the CEO of the agency, came up with the idea to create an online dictionary that would translate directly from Kazakh into English and from English into Kazakh, so that the translation would be of high quality, convenient, have an extensive vocabulary and terms from different, including field-oriented areas. That’s how the work on creating an online dictionary began.

10 people, translators and editors who made up the base of dictionary worked on the project. But now there are 5 people in the team: Indira Serikbay - founder, team inspirer; Irina Khvan - translator; Svetlana Volkova - accountant; Ramil Biktimirov - IT professional and Marjan Mizinbayeva herself - project manager.

Tell us about the purpose and benefits of the project

Launching a startup is not an easy task, the guest admits. Already at the initial stage, the team faced difficulties in developing terms of reference and searching for word bases for implementation on the website.

“We still recall the most difficult stage, namely, the manual compilation of a database of words (500,000 words). At that time, we all had to manually enter the contents of printed dictionaries into the system. But on the other hand, it is also a good experience, for which we are grateful.”

Now the hardest part is over, and the project brings great benefits to society.

As Marjan explains, the goal of the project is to create a professional, top-quality online platform for all those who need translation of terms and increase the number of resources.

“When we first thought about the project, we wanted to do something that would contribute to the development and improvement of the status of the state Kazakh language in the country and its use in various professional fields and would develop the translation industry. For the audience speaking the Kazakh language (70%), and for the learners of the Kazakh language, our project provides access to quality resources.”

How do you plan to develop the project?

The project website, says Marjan, began to be developed in 2019. For 2 years, translators have been manually compiling the database of words, and now the site is fully operating and ready to use.

Now the girls are promoting it. The project has not yet received funding, but the team plans to raise funding.

According to Marjan, as part of the participation in the Tumaris.Tech program, the team invited a new employee, and a new employee always has new ideas and a new look. The girl admits that the knowledge that they received in the program inspired them to think about the changes and the current activities of translation agency.

“We really liked the Tumaris.Tech project. Thanks to our participation there, we drew up an action plan, reviewed many processes, and reorganized. There were very useful tasks from the tracker Alena Tkacheva — they allowed us to see the whole picture in our industry more broadly, led to new acquaintances and valuable information about the startup. The speech of Rada Islamova influenced the personal changes of one of the employees, made me think about life in general, despite the fact that the speech concerned only a startup, it also affected other areas of life.”

Marjan notes that Kazakhstan is actively developing towards a startup ecosystem, and if one has a goog idea for startup and willing to work no matter what, then eventually success will come.

“When a person sparks with an idea, is full of enthusiasm and energy, one can do everything, by doing useful thing, he/ she will inspire people around. For novice startuppers, I want them to believe in themselves, to have inner strength and core, not to give up because of the obstacles that may come through. I advise them to find a good team of like-minded people, not to be afraid to learn from the mistakes and experience of others. Be curious, try and love what you do. And then you will succeed!”