Within the framework of Huawei’s collaboration with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Digital Technologies (MoDT) and the regional finals of Huawei’s Seeds for the Future (SFTF) programme for university students from the Middle East and Central Asia (ME&CA), held in Teshkent from August 11-17, Ummatoy Yuldasheva (pictured), an Uzbek startup entrepreneur and former participant in the Huawei SFTF programme, gave an exclusive interview to *Gulf Times.
“I am managing different social IT startup projects,” she said. “I own my own IT company, and recently I have opened a nonprofit organisation dedicated to empowering women and youth in Uzbekistan.”
“My startup project began in 2020, when I was a product manager with a local company,” Ummatoy recounted. “I launched a startup project cuisine to empower unemployed women, who would cook at home and sell the home-made food with the help of our platform.”
“They would upload the photos of the food on our platform,” she continued. “Their prices are cheaper in comparison to that of restaurants.”
“(We only charge them) 5% (to use our platform), and they can make at least $300 per month, which is huge by Uzbek standards for a housewife,” Ummatoy said.
On her other startup projects, she said: “I moved to an education startup project to help students find jobs and launch their own startup projects, helping them with consultations.”
“I have also created a mobile application dedicated to sex education for young females,” Ummatoy added. “This is not usual in Uzbekistan and for central Asian people ... it is not part of our tradition.”
“We believe that young girls need to learn about this topic, because there is a lot of harassment, and because they do not know much about sex education,” she explained. “Hence, we launched this app.”
“We also developed a social startup project for workers to send complaints anonymously about companies if they are subjected to harassment, or if they encounter any pay or salary injustice,” she said.
Concerning her ongoing projects, Ummatoyy said: “I am working on startup projects for Australia, Germany, while (at the same time) being an assistant professor at the Uzbekistan’s Central Asian University and looking after my young family.”
“I also work with the UN Development Programme (UNDP),” she added. “I am involved in projects with the AIESEC team, which in its turn works with the UNDP.”
“I am a mentor with the UNDP, and they invite me and pay me each time they hold an event,” Ummatoy said.
She said that she is dedicated to empowering women so that “they can earn a living even if they are housewives, and that everything is achievable for women and girls, and there should not be any limit to what they can do”.
“They need to work hard, and I am here to help them achieve their goals,” Ummatoy added.
