​Expat Business & SME Exchange

​At Expat Connect, you don’t simply attend an event you join a carefully curated community of founders, professionals, investors, and business leaders shaping the future of Central Asia.

​Each session combines meaningful networking with practical conversations led by experienced entrepreneurs and industry experts.

​Our focus is simple: connect ambitious people, exchange ideas, and leave with insights and relationships that create long-term value.

​​​​​Why Attend?

• ​Discover business opportunities and emerging trends across Uzbekistan and Central Asia.

• ​Meet founders, executives, investors, and professionals in a relaxed, high-quality networking environment.

• ​Gain practical insights from entrepreneurs building companies and communities in the region.

• ​Build meaningful relationships that extend well beyond the event.

​​​​​Featured Speakers

11:15 AM — Shakhruz (Ashot) Ashirov

​Your AI Coworker That Works 24/7

​Shakhruz (Ashot) Ashirov is Chief AI Officer at MILA GPT, a software engineer, entrepreneur, educator, and AI product creator with decades of experience in technology.

​He is the founder of MILA GPT, an AI platform designed to turn artificial intelligence from a simple tool into a practical digital coworker.

​His session will show how AI employees can remember your business, communicate with customers, use business tools, complete routine tasks, and work alongside other AI agents while keeping humans in control.

​He will cover:

• ​Why the next step for AI is moving from assistant to coworker

• ​How memory, skills, tools, and rules create reliable AI employees

• ​How multiple AI agents can work together as a digital team

• ​Which business tasks can generate measurable ROI when delegated to AI

• ​A live MILA demonstration using a real business example from Tashkent
  
  11:45 AM — Abdulrahman Waleed Sawalha

​Building a Brand That Lasts

​Abdulrahman Waleed Sawalha is a marketing and sales leader with over 15 years of experience across the GCC and Middle East.

​He worked with Nikon and Fuji in Dubai before becoming Area Sales and Marketing Manager for Carl Zeiss, Tokina, NiSi Filters, and Hasselblad.

​At Carl Zeiss, he grew regional revenue from AED 300,000 to AED 2.25 million and expanded the brand from 2 to 13 showrooms across the region in six years.

​Today, he is the Founder and Director of Art One Studio in Tashkent, where he built a photography business from the ground up and is expanding into art and photography education.

​He will cover:

• ​Why marketing — not skill alone — is what makes a business last

• ​The real challenges of building a brand as an outsider in a new market

• ​Four practical marketing moves anyone in the room can start using

• ​Lessons from scaling an international brand across the GCC

• ​What changed when he went from growing someone else’s brand to building his own