ASTANA – A popular video hosting platform TikTok and AstanaHub digital technopark will jointly launch a TikTok StartUp Academy, an educational project for Kazakh startups, reported AstanaHub press service on Sept. 28.
TikTok Vice President Theo Bertram. Photo credit: http://businessinsider.com/
“Cooperation between Astana Hub and TikTok will allow Kazakh startups to promote their services and products to a global audience effectively. I am sure that the partnership with TikTok will also increase the recognition of Kazakhstan and the Kazakh IT ecosystem, which will attract investments and new IT companies to the country,” said Astana Hub CEO Magzhan Madiyev.
The program is free, but only 300 startups will have access to the TikTok for Business webinars, and the first 20 to pass the exams will attend offline workshops in Astana. The best projects will receive grants for TikTok promotion.
The initiative will officially launch on Oct. 14, and workshops will be held throughout the month.
“The interest of Kazakh business in TikTok is growing. As an innovative company, we want to support young technology businesses. We want companies of all sizes to grow their business with us. Thus we partnered with Astana Hub, Kazakhstan’s and Central Asia’s largest IT start-up technopark,” noted Anastasia Panina, CEO of Global Business Solutions at TikTok in Eastern Europe.
In addition, TikTok Vice President Theo Bertram expressed the company’s willingness to open a representative office in Kazakhstan at the Digital Bridge Forum.
“We announced this morning that we will develop our business here, including opening an office, which we will be happy to do. Kazakhstan is not just a creative and entrepreneurial hotspot. We also see it as a regional hub,” Bertram stated.
He stated that the Kazakh President’s broad support for digital development speaks well for the company and the country’s future.
