IT club for women "GAP": members met for the second time

On August 31, 2022, the second meeting as part of the GAP IT club for women took place. The project was initiated by the Ministry for the Development of Information Technologies and Communications in partnership with IT Park. New meeting laid a basis for new cooperation, as Dlux Dance Studio became one of the partners of the project.

The main objective of the club is to support women, improve their IT literacy and develop networking. The goal of the initiators of the club is to address the scarcity of women in the IT industry, to make IT professions accessible and interesting for women and girls, thereby reducing the gender gap in the sector.

The format of events within the club is divided into two parts: official and informal, so that the project participants have chance to not only gain new knowledge and broaden their horizons, but also have a good time.

It is noteworthy that the youngest member of the club is 16 years old, and the oldest is 55. In addition, the members of the club are representatives of various fields: students, self-employed, homemakers, specialists from government agencies and the private sector.

In the official part of the event, the participants listened to three speakers: Nigora Akilova, founder and executive director of the Beautify.uz project, young freelancer Sevinch Bakhtiyarova, former head of the Gazprom Neft project office, partner of the Uzum project office Yulia Smirnova.

As Nigora Akilova, the founder of the startup, notes, the development of the IT sector simplifies life and helps women.

“The development of the IT industry creates huge opportunities for people. Now there is an opportunity to work remotely, it is very convenient and good especially for women. Women can earn and study without sacrificing their time should spent on family, can successfully combine career prospects and household responsibilities.”

Sevinch Bakhtiyarova also noted the importance of popularizing the sector among women.

“Today, it is especially important to popularize IT among the girls and women of Uzbekistan, since this industry will allow them to work on projects from anywhere in the world, being at home or in another location convenient for them. Freelancing opens up great opportunities, since every woman can build her own work schedule based on occupation, as well as independently choose orders and their quantity."

The IT sphere is one of the industries with vast majority of areas to choose from where everyone can find something they like, whether it is programming or coding, graphic and web design, digital marketing and much more. One of the popular areas today, is project management, where specialists do not create code, but direct those who do it.

“Not a single successful IT project can be successful without a project manager — a person who manages project resources, assesses risks and is responsible for quality. His/her task is to give the client the expected result. Today it is a sought-after profession, and most importantly, a promising and interesting are to be engaged in,” added the expert Yulia Smirnova.

In the informal part of the event, the guests were able to take part in an intensive fitness workshop from an experienced Dlux Dance Studio coach Katrin Bikchintayeva.

“For career development, one also should care about one’s health besides working and studying. Thanks to sports and regular physical activity, each of us can keep fit, be a highly effective employee, and most importantly, always have a great mood to reach new goals,” said coach Katrin Bikchintayeva.

As a result, the club members were able to develop their networking skills and communicate with IT experts, get answers for questions of interest, expand their knowledge and even do some physical exercises under the supervision of an experienced coach.

“I am very happy that I was able to attend the GAP meeting. It was welcoming! The meeting was quite informative that motivated to keep moving towards goals and self-development. I wish these kind of events took place more often!” - said Nazokat, one of the participants of the project.

“I’m speechless. I feel young again! Thanks to the organizers!” said another participant of the project, Uljon Annaeva while sharing her impressions.

Furthermore, the IT club for women GAP created convenience for future participants.  Now, attendees can learn about upcoming events and the latest news of the project, leave a feedback and register for a new meeting via club’s official website: https://it-gap.uz/