On 28 March 2018, Sputnik Kyrgyzstan reported on a CNBC piece about the Bishkek startup scene, based on an American journalist visit the previous autumn. The framing on both sides was the same: a country with little in the way of natural resources, where a recognisable software-export layer had emerged anyway.
The CNBC reporters had spent time with two Bishkek companies. Mad Devs, founded by Alla Klimenko, was serving clients in Silicon Valley. MakeUseOf.com, associated with Aibek Esengulov, was reaching about a million users globally as a consumer tech publication.
Aziz Soltobaev, founder of the KG Labs public foundation, was quoted in the Sputnik write-up. «Technologies will help Kyrgyzstan reach advanced countries’ level,» he said. «Business ideas develop dynamically here.» Klimenko’s framing was sharper on the resource question: «We gather talented people and help them choose direction. Unlike neighbours, we have no oil — we use ideas and knowledge.»
The Sputnik piece situated the CNBC coverage inside the broader regional reading that China’s Belt and Road framework was inviting at the time, and pointed forward to a large IT Forum scheduled for Bishkek in April 2018.
What was new in the CNBC framing, for the local audience, was not the existence of these companies — they were already known in Bishkek — but the fact that a major American business channel had crossed into Central Asia to report on them. That signal mattered for the next round of foreign clients and investors deciding whether Kyrgyzstan was a place they could place work.
Source: Sputnik Kyrgyzstan, 28 March 2018. ru.sputnik.kg/20180328/usa-kyrgyzstan-issledovanie-stratap-1038372938.html