Technovation & Toastmasters

In 2018 Almaty Toastmasters club(ATM) became official partners of Technovation Kazakhstan. TM Community Channel asked Aliya Shaikhina (current Immediate Past President of ATM) about cooperation of Toastmasters and Tehcnovation.

How did the story start

ATM and Technovation has had common background even before we started offical partnership. We had a few of our members maintain personal connections with Technovation's prior to it. 

Nadezhda Tsoy, our current fantastic Toastmasters Technovation project Ambassador curating this relationship for ATM was a mentor of Technovation team in 2016. Then, both of us were the Regional Pitch Judges in 2017. Nadya coordinates our engagement with Technovation Kazakhstan. 

I was first a speed-coaching expert and judge from US Diplomatic Mission in 2017 and earlier, got to meet & grew to deeply admire Diana Tsoy through Women in Tech project that I was involved in via my work. So like all good partnerships, it was a natural friendly connection. A decision to work closely as a Club evolved gradually. Sitting in as a judge I saw some excellent teams losing their chance at presenting their ideas well during the regional pitch. It was a pity.

Later, I was among multiple coaches and experts that helped the World Technovation Grand Prize winners: a wonderful team /flash from Kazakhstan and their app Qamcare (you should look them up!) in getting their pitch polished. I realized we have to get Toastmasters involved to help future teams with their pitches. That's what we set ourselves to do. 

Toastmasters and technovation collaborate on multiple levels. Toastmasters is an amazing resource of mentors, coaches, experts from different fields and that's what the Technovation Challenge is looking for.

Nadya, our internal Toastmasters Technovation lead coordinates with Diana, Regional Technovation Ambassador and Founder the requirements and needs across all stages of the event. We sat down together with Nadya and consulted Diana on timeframes and Nadya developed a plan.

Nadya prepared internal marketing materials and distributed them inside our Club Community. For example, Technovation looks for mentors for the teams with four month commitment. Four of our members: Kymbat, Baurzhan, Zhadra, Davranbek were team mentors with a time commitment of four-five months mentorship of the teams! We were so proud of them and the work their teams were doing. Aisha and Nadya were experts at the speed-coaching session sharing much-needed advice and feedback as an observer.

Pitch training session

As a Club we have committed to organize a Pitch Training session that was just before regional pitches. Our Club members get to train the girls on how to do the pitches. It is a win-win for the Club, offering an excellent platform to get our members complete their "Better Speaker Series" requirements. We never start any type of cooperation if we aren't sure that our members can also get benefits from it. Projects from "Better Speaker Series" are obligatory for toastmasters.These are already prepared presentations, you need to present them relying on you personal experience. As toastmasters we have a resposibility to share and spread our knowledge.

"Pitch Training" session was organized in May 2018, a week before Technovation Regional Pitch in Almaty. Nadya coordinated the whole event and we had our members: Nadya, Akikat, Alisher, Zhanara and myself give trainings on "Pitch overview and organizing your speech", "Conquering your fear", "Selling your idea", "Excellent presentations" and "Storytelling". We had four-five members stay up on Sunday night to help us host practical sessions after the training bit to complete the workshop. Also so many members came just to support and help us to conduct everything on the highest level. It was fantastic!

All girls were absolutely ready to participate in the "Pitch Training Session". They were listening very carefully, taking notes and taking pictures as they said it will help them in future. After training there was Table Topic Session led by Zhanara and everyone could participate and polish obtained knowledge. Girls were divided into groups and in every group every girl gave her short speech and others briefly evaluated her. Our members were controlling this process. We tried to adjust to girls' needs considering that they're anyway quite young.

Regional Pitch

All above and this year, since I was a so-so judge, Technovation asked me to MC the Regional Pitch in Almaty. Much more challenging as I was worried for every team that got on the stage. It was of assistance to Technovation Ambassadors here: Diana, Balzhan, Dina and Dinara. A Fantastic Four as I call them. Technovation has an inspiring and heart-warming environment with much credit to these ladies! Along with their Astana teammates pour their hearts out and root for every girl and teams. I will never forget Diana's tears after the pitch this year. The stress of behind the scenes work and worries for the girls and for the events and sponsors... unimaginable! That's when you get happy Toastmasters could not only share its grand human resource expertise but truly mentally help and support. 

Girls for a change

Well, the Mission is obviously to keep sharing our public speaking knowledge and it is a natural collaboration choice. But honestly, these girls inspired us much much more. Seeing 10-year old talk about solutions to social issues or describing their business plan was a jaw-dropping moment for all of us. Anyone in Toastmasters, who was involved in the process enjoyed this experience tremendously. My work with /flash last year, albeit brief, inspired me to realize I was not a bad public speaking mentor and can actually coach well. 

We need to let girls provide their vision for ways they would want to make an impact, help tonsolve some of the problems that societies faces. We have to give them a spotlight in areas, where they have smaller involvement, like tech area. Projects like Technovation Challenge that inspire girls and give them chance to believe in themselves, gravitate them towards STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and provide them a platform for implementing their innovative ideas. Girls tend to gear towards non-STEM professions as they do not believe they can do it. We have to change it. 

Reasons to collaborate

Firstly, we are meant to do so based on Club development plan. There have to be proactive efforts to share and expose our members to real-life trainings. 

Secondly, every members path towards Distinguished Toastmaster title must have Better Speaker and Leadership development trainings and speeches conducted. It makes sense to do it outside of the Club and comfort zone. 

In addition, sharing what we learnt is always very rewarding! Especially, when working on programs like Technovation, whose values we fully embrace! 

Our collaboration with Technovation was a real pleasure. We have great communication and similar spirit. I particularly enjoyed seeing our members get inspired to change the world or trying to remember what they were doing when they were 10, comparing themselves modestly ("to their disadvantage"!) with these young 10-17 year olds truly doing something to make our world a little better, safer, happier! If you give them a chance, young boys and girls never fail to amaze. We should try not to forget to listen. And get inspired!