#46 - Elvira Albaeva: Brave Dreams and Free Knowledge

In this episode, Sam Bell speaks with Elvira Albaeva, a technologist from Kyrgyzstan, about free knowledge, finding what drives you, and the quiet courage of a new chapter.

Elvira brings professional depth across software development, CRM automation and business process improvement, including CTO and banking technology roles. In her current transition year, she is using that practical capability in Tash Kumyr, teaching students how to understand and use AI more safely, including privacy, hallucinations, prompting and simple tech building.

This conversation moves through Kyrgyzstan, Central Asian food and tea culture, the people who become mentors without knowing it, and the brave dreams we keep carrying until we are ready to touch them.

This episode explores:
• Knowledge shared freely and the mentors who shape us
• Network School, friendship and being seen clearly
• AI privacy, literacy, prompting and practical tech building
• Central Asian tea culture and gathering people
• Brave dreams, transition and following what drives you

Guest bio:
Elvira Albaeva is a technologist from Kyrgyzstan with experience across software development, CRM automation and business process improvement, including CTO and banking technology roles.

Alongside her technology work, Elvira has consistently volunteered and contributed to education and mentoring initiatives, including Rails Girls, Technovation Girls and recent AI literacy and privacy workshops for students in Kyrgyzstan. She is currently in a transition year, exploring what comes next while continuing to share practical knowledge freely.

She may become a film director in the future.

"All the useful knowledge I've ever gained came to me for free. Someone always shared what they knew, suggested something to look at, to read, to watch. They are my mentors without knowing they are my mentors. I'm sure I'm not the first person to put it this way, but it's true for me. That's why I believe in sharing knowledge and creating free resources for others.” Elvira Albaeva

Guest links:
• Elvira Albaeva: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albaeva/  https://x.com/e_albaeva  https://www.instagram.com/e.albaeva and https://www.facebook.com/elvira.albaeva
• Elvira’s writing: https://open.substack.com/pub/elviraalbaeva
• Elvira’s AI literacy post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/albaeva_i-builtprobe-v1-a-mini-course-on-ai-basics-activity-7451244395665850368-RA1w/

Conversation references:
• AI Safety Book: https://www.aisafetybook.com
• Bayram Annakov: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bayramannakov/
• Alex Yao: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thealexyao/
• Lovable: https://lovable.dev/
• 3Blue1Brown: https://www.youtube.com/c/3blue1brown
• Network School: https://ns.com/samanthaleebell/invite
• Stephane Laurent Villedieu on Natural Genius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu0YGxJVdog
• Rails Girls: https://railsgirls.com
• Technovation Girls Kyrgyzstan: https://technovationchallenge.org/kyrgyzstan-events/

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Elvira Albaeva
01:11 Kyrgyzstan, mountains, food and home
05:01 Network School and feeling seen
15:33 Teaching AI safety in Tash Kumyr
24:32 Mentoring and paying knowledge forward
26:20 Tea, culture and gathering people
31:56 Brave dreams and transition
38:04 Rails Girls and becoming a developer

Explore further:
Deepen your listening: https://naturalgenius.com.au
Learn more about Sam: https://samanthabell.com.au

Subscribe to hear future episodes.

Credits:
Hosted by Samantha (Sam) Bell in Kiama and Tash Kumyr, Kyrgyzstan, 26 April, 2026
Produced at the Kiama office, 26 April - 17 May, 2026

Natural Genius https://naturalgenius.com.au

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. We're here to help you tap into your natural genius. Let's go. I'm so excited that you're about to meet Elvira from Kyrgyzstan. She is mischievous, fun, clever, kind, polite, and loyal. A beautiful human. I'm so excited to see what she decides to do in her life and feel very grateful to have met her. Enjoy hearing from Elvira. Amazing Elvira, welcome to the Natural Genius Podcast. Thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. It's I don't know. I think it would be one of the greatest experiences for this year.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

That is high praise indeed. I have a feeling that you have a good life. That is very high praise. Tell me about the land in which you live. Tell me about Kyrgyzstan. What do you love about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Oh I mountains. Maybe as every tourist which came to Kyrgyzstan expects to see beautiful mountains. And I love my country for my mountains, for nature. Sometimes for people and people always like not priority, but and for food. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I love food here. Tell me about food in Kyrgyzstan, the food that you love.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

In Central Asia, not only in Kyrgyzstan, we have the same traditional dish, I guess. For like two or three, four countries, it's almost the same, with like slightly differences in servicing. And mostly it contains uh potato, meat, and dough. Am I pronouncing it right? Dough.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Yeah. And rice, of course.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

I think you pronounce it how you pronounce it at home.

unknown 2:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

So yeah. And you think I meant to translate that into English?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

No, I mean I tried to say it in English. These ingredients. Oh, is it okay? Great. Okay, good, good, good. So yeah, it's uh main ingredients for all dishes we have in Central Asia. And it's all of them has a lot of calories, so when you ate, you get full much faster. Compared to when I try outside of my country, like in Asia or in Europe, it's not that um I don't feel fulfilled. You don't feel full that fast.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Ah potatoes, meat, and dal. That's what fills you up. Did you used to have dal for breakfast like I did when we were at network school?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

No. Usually I have eggs. And did eggs fill you up?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Maybe it's actually non-processed foods. When it's processed foods, it doesn't fill you up.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

I haven't thought about it actually. I just like used to do it. Sometimes we can eat something that left after dinner, you know. It's usual practice for many, many people, not in a capital city, I guess. People who just live in more bigger city can have them more getting westernized.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Yes. Do you enjoy living in the city or the country?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

It doesn't matter for me actually. Where to live if it's I have more stable internet than usual. And my laptop. So yeah, it doesn't matter for me. I I wanted to say it's what is matter, it's who is around you as always.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Speaking of that, when we were at network school together, we made great friends on LinkedIn recently. I saw a great post from you that talked about how your great experience there. So I really enjoyed seeing that. Tell me the story of how you came to be there and then what you loved about it.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

I need to start from the beginning. It's like a great idea. Coming to an S, it's one of the most best decisions, I guess. One of the best decisions I ever made. But outside of these big decisions, uh I want to say that every day that small decisions that break brought me to an S. Because maybe before to come to an S, two or three years before, I just bumped to podcast where Bayram was a guest speaker. I listened to this podcast. I was like, hmm, it's interesting the way how he's thinking. I started following him and reading his uh posts on Telegram, like reading books that he's recommended, and I really enjoyed it. He became like my role model. And then he shared about network school first cohort. It was in 2024, September. I applied, but uh I was accepted only to second cohort, which is I guess um my one of the best achievements, also, not only best decision, but also achievement.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Thank God I got accepted and met so many wonderful people. Actually, this place really changed the way I see the world, I see myself like and not only see maybe and how I feel what's going on around me because because of people there, each one some kind of become my teacher, like these long breakfasts and dinners, and I don't know. We always have some workshops or lectures between this meal, and yeah, I I it's hard to describe to someone who never been there because you need to live this experience, you need to see how it's going on inside. But yeah, if you are interested, just go and try.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Tell me about you, Elvira. Like, tell me about what you loved about it and how you have changed, because I loved the way you said that before, that it's really changed the way you view the world and that people around you are teachers. Tell me what you're noticing about yourself a year or so later.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

When I arrived as I wrote and my LinkedIn post, it was really true. I arrived like uh a bit burned out. Maybe too much. So I I get burnt out, and when I got accepted, it was a chance to give myself a little break, maybe not to work 20 hours. Yeah, just only maybe five. No, I'm exaggerating, not 20 hours, but sometimes when you sit in front of your desk, you're like, okay, I can do it. Let's see it another 10 hours.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

So yeah, I here I am that I said to people that sometimes I thought I was offending you when we were at network school, and then I just realized that you were actually teasing me. You were just having fun and joking around. So, but I really believed just then that you work 20-hour days. Maybe it's just uh a bit happy to be sarcastic or like using humor, like Soviet former Soviet Union humor, which people only from this region can understand, and like I think I do really appreciate that you and I have such love for each other because when I thought that I was actually offending you, you would just start laughing at me, or you would explain that you were teasing me. And I've I want to come back to what you were saying, and I've also reflected on the diversity because so many people and places talk about diversity, and I feel so privileged that we got to live in it. We got to live in a lot of countries being represented, and I love that. I loved learning about different cultures, and I loved you teasing me, and I love the friendship that we developed without coming from the same land right down to right now.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

That you can teach me about Kyrgyzstan and please keep talking a little into come and see it yourself like this land, and about NS, yeah, I totally agree that we have this unique experience to live with people from around the world. And the one thing maybe which I totally didn't expect that uh I've been seen by people like who I am. I didn't know like I didn't have to explain myself what I'm doing, why I'm saying what I'm saying, what I'm doing, what I'm like they're like, okay. They just saw me, who I am, maybe clearer than I so I did it myself. So yeah, the most I get influenced by people, maybe the most with I spend time with like Debbie. She is one of the great persons, and I'm happy that uh she's one of my best friends now because yeah, she and other wonderful, strong ladies just help me to believe in myself. The way I try to see myself through the eyes. Yeah, and it gave me it it gave me some you know, grave to move forward to finally leave my job that I didn't see myself for the next maybe five, ten years. Uh yeah, and just they gave me this strength to just figure out give myself time to figure out what I should do next to explore this life. Not only that I have to be the working machine that I used to be.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

That is exceptional, and that was not expected.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I totally didn't expect it. I when I applied, I didn't know what I should expect. I didn't know who I have no idea what what is it, what I should learn there because it was like network school, okay, school. It should be like lectures or something like that. I told my colleagues that I probably getting like to study, they're like, okay, go on, like but it was not it's really hard to describe, but it's kind of kind of why or equal of why.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

But that's a beautiful way of saying it because it was a place where whenever I wanted to work and work and work and work, I could find a place where I could just really enjoy getting a lot of stuff done. And then seeing the same people at the gym every day, including yourself, was so fun to be able to catch the lift down from the hotel room and then see Stefan in the lift or see you in the lift or see somebody. And then at breakfast to be talking about something, maybe the latest AI developments, or something philosophical, or especially on Saturday or Sunday when people were just that little bit more relaxed to be talking about topics that were important to us. So the school of life is really apt because one of the things I loved about network school was the big-hearted people that turned up in March and this core group of people that then grew out with new people coming in across the months. So I haven't said it in those words, but I love the way you just said that. What surprised me a lot was how big-hearted people were and open. I've talked about network school to a lot of people since. It's lovely to see how people say that's so good to hear because we hear such negative things about AI. And when people hear about people coding and with lovely intentions and big hearts and wisdom, they they're like, oh wow, okay, that's different to what I thought was happening with AI building. So this segues really nicely into talking about what you're doing now, the project that you enjoyed doing with the kids.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

It's kind of a side project that helps me to contribute to society because when I talk to people here in my hometown, which is in the southeast part of Kyrgyzstan, like small town, which called Tashkumir, uh, which means uh rock coal.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Does it?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yeah, there's uh coal mining industry since Soviet time. Yeah, and people actually don't know what is AI, like they know it's something like can solve your can give you a fast answer, and you don't need to scroll answers from Google, like it's ready results, just read it and take it. And when I started to ask, I just tried to experiment with my nephew and nieces, like what what do you know about this? How are you using it? What you usually do, and I find out that people, especially teenagers at school, using it to get fast answers for their homework or for fun, like generating images. I was like, okay, I went to schools like and asked permission to uh teach, like have maybe one lesson or two day time to teach students about AI safety and how efficiently use this tool. Because if you it's literally they have the all knowledge of human history in their pocket, but they don't use it. I mean, I I I I I'm not using it very efficiently too, but I wanted to show another way. Actually, there was a few insights during these workshops across schools that uh first students from Kyrgyz speaking schools the writing the prompts in Russian because it's more AI gives more like deep answer and more correct, but in Kurgus it's more shallow and mostly time incorrect. So students they they even may not know Russian well to prompt, but they're like okay, it's easier for me to prompt in Russian than try to describe what I what I want to get from this tool. And second, no one knows about that AI could hallucinate. They just like get first answer, and okay with that, they don't check, they don't they just trust because it's yeah, like it's the most smart thing in the world. How can I not trust? Yeah, it's too main insights, I guess I got from these workshops because I when when I went to teach them, I didn't expect anything. I was like, okay, it's it should be cool, it would be cool. Like people love AI AI, like people talk about AI in every corner. I was wrong. Maybe at an S people talk about AI in every corner. People hear like outside of an S, they don't care. AI give them answers, they satisfy.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Wow. So tell me a little bit more about what you were teaching. How do you teach people to be more efficient on uh using AI?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Well, yeah, about AI safety. Actually, I found great lectures I can share with you later. It's uh Berkeley professor, yeah. He's talking about AI safety. I really like it, but I didn't like go deeper on this topic. I just all describe the student that AI can hallucinate and also that they about molecules injection, like they no matter what they shouldn't share the personal information or personal information or relatives to the to it with AI. Yeah, and how to use the fishingly. Actually, here I use wipe coding, just like open, lovable, and told them to build something, whatever they want, game, website, any app, maybe they wanted to solve some problem, and etc. Before that, I showed them how prompt can look like. But AI can understand them better. They just if they just say, hey, I need I don't know, book up. So it was like structure why they want it, what it should do, how it look like, how it's it should feel like, and etc. So yeah, I give them this task to build anything they want. Actually, maybe this part was most fun because kids love creating something. Boys mostly created games. Yeah, at that moment they saw the way how they describe 2 AI was. What they want. At first, maybe two steps, they're like, oh, I didn't want this. Why is showing me this? It's completely different. Oh, I didn't expect this great. Like someone someone got great results without describing it. It's like unpredictable. But yeah, they realize that they need to be more detailed to get results that they want. That's why I use five coding. But after that, I I want to continue, and it's not easy to just go to every school every day and show them because even it's I like this project, maybe some people really need it. But I physically can go to every school outside of my town, maybe, or other cities. So I I wanted to build some first of all telegram boards with lectures and grades, like school. And when I give it to my nephew, he was like, No, it's too many to read. I don't want to. And then I build not so complicated websites where you can just try to predict some experiments and run it and go an answer and see the gap, your prediction, and how it actually works. Maybe to someone it would be useful if they wanted to know more deeply about this topic. I also start to create these short videos for Instagram Reels and post it to Pro channel. Have you seen the three blue one brown channel on YouTube? So it's a great channel. I I love to watch it because it describes complicated topics in an animation way. I found out about money library on Python, so it's actually really useful. Just creating this short video to show anyone who wants to know the little tips like a hallucination or how AI can predict an expert, how AI read what you're typing to them. I don't know how far will go this project, but I hope if it helps at least one person, one student, one grandma or grandfather to understand this technology a little better.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

It's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Approximately how many schools are there in Tashkumur, in this uh city where I live. It's uh seven schools and two college plus university, I guess they combine. I was in six schools and one college. Because one school just declined my actually it was nice to have this experience. But it's it's not my first experience to teaching. I've been doing it yes since 2019. Always from some organization like American Coroner or Technovation Girls, some kind of this just mentoring, mostly girls, teenage girls, or people with uh physical disabilities.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Yes. Oh, I love seeing your delight having been in the schools. I hope that you keep going with this. I hope that you keep exploring to see what it could be for you and for many students.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Uh thank you. But I treat it like just side project or that I'm paying back to universe to opportunity that I got to becoming like developer or to have a chance to be one of the members of Network School.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

So beautiful the balance. I also wanted to make mention of the amazing tea party that you put on when we were at network school together. You brought cakes and tea, and you had beautiful imagery photos playing on the big screen of your land, and you you you brought together, I feel like it was 50 people.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

We all had such a wonderful time. Almost every person at network school is an expert in some kind of fields, and I was like, whoa, each of them so great. How can I do something? My experience is not even close. What's the teaching, what they're showing? But there was a step, and we were talking about it. I was like, no, I'm sure you can you can do something, and then I was like, maybe I should just do what we usually do in Central Asia when we want to bring people together or we want to talk just in a calm, you know, this uh atmosphere. It's like maybe tea. Yeah, I uh we love tea in Central Asia where we can't imagine our life without tea. So yeah, I was like, T, I I I want to drink tea, maybe I should do something which show my culture because so many people from Europe, US, Asia, like I mean different Asia, and I was like, okay, maybe at most five people show up, like my close friends, it's okay. It will be good. I will see it as a success. And then I was so happy to see that uh people came and really enjoyed conversation during this tea party. I don't know what to say. I love to see that the each of us need just time to slow down and just do nothing, just talk, not only about technology or a great project or the goals, just just talk about tea, or I don't know, about some cookie.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yes, I can still remember the energy, how people were giggling. There was this real fun and ease, and that it was like a real recharge of pause where people could just enjoy the amazing food. So much of it that you had on display for us. Perhaps people that didn't know each other were handing cakes to each other, and so pleased that you enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. How big is your family? I have a feeling that there is many people in your family, and how would your aunties or your nieces or your uncles describe you?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

In my family, we had three people, like me and aunties. But as a whole family, if I will include my other parts or relatives, it's like yeah, my oldest cousin, sister, has six kids and already two grandsons, and when they came here, I was like, Oh, I love you guys, but when you go back to your home because it's getting like chaos, but I sometimes we need some kind of chaos because it brings joy in our life, and you start to notice how you appreciate this quietness in your life. No, I'm joking, I'm joking. Yeah, I have a lot of nieces in uh nephews. My youngest cousin sister has three daughters. I haven't seen the youngest one yet. I need to visit them. She lives in the capital city. And I guess I'm like you know these memes where all the sisters just go somewhere and no one knows what she's doing when she she just came up time after time and see like okay, I'm good, you good. I think I'm that's that kind of person in my family. No one's totally like fully understands why I'm doing what I want to do, which is my plan to life, because for them it's uh for my culture your main priority, it's your family. And after that, it's like uh building something like business, career, or studying. But yeah, maybe it's because I watch a lot of shows like Friends or X-Files when I was a child. It's kind of I even wanted to become a film director, but it's surprising me how I ended up in the tech world.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Is there still a little part of you that would like to be a film director?

SPEAKER_01 32:00

I think it's not a little part, it's maybe a big part, but I am afraid that it's maybe that part that you tell to people like, oh, I dream. I'm dreaming to become this, but it's kind of precious dreams that you're like afraid even touch, as it could be like oh my god. While it's still your dream and you're like carrying it.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

I am so looking forward to seeing what you do in life.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Oh I I need to wait now to what about now?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

I'm gonna fast forward are you gonna be a director or are you gonna be a technologist? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Well, uh I'm a transition period of my life right now and trying to figure out what what is my icky guy. So yeah. Maybe I will maybe I need to go back to NS as soon as possible to get this wisdom and pray from other ladies and gentlemen who are always supporting.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yes, have a feeling our I have a feeling our friends would actually just be part of an experiment to help you or me or anyone else along. That's part of what I love about the friends that we made there, how supportive we are of each other.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Everyone needs supporting community and people who believe in you more than you can believe in yourself at the moment when you you know, when you can see this light where to go, and they can be that lighthouse that shows you what's going on around.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

And so yeah, out of the last ten episodes that I've recorded, at least four out of the ten are in transition. So it very much feels like a time where there is a lot of people evaluating what is next and how they can refine the life that they're living right now.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

It's a time when you feel excitement what would be next, but also this you a bit scared. I mean when I left my job, I it was hard for me, like really challenging not to work because I used to work. I I used to work even on week weekends, and I I I was struggling, and I also I was afraid to jump to another work, another job, because I I knew and I now also feel the same that when I will commit to something, like it should be at least for a few years. And I can afford this few years for something that I I'm not believing, and I don't want to prioritize my life for this kind of projects or maybe because of that transition it could be excitement and scaring a bit a side of financial part of this the reality. Yes, yeah, it's it's kind of what it's better, at least I can say it only for myself. It's it's a great period to discover to just see it and try to understand what's matter for you, really matter, not just be working because maybe for me working or loving to work too much was um a way to escape to that thought, what is better for me to face this that why am I avoiding my dream, for instance, to becoming a director? Why am I not doing this? Why am I not going to places which I wanted to visit? Why am not to talking to people that I am admiring and wanted to talk to? Because I'm really afraid to start to talk to people, but MS helped me to not be so scared to say hey to someone that I never knew before. And these sometimes these just hey, how are you? What are you prefer to eat for breakfast during breakfast time? Turns out for real deep conversations, and yeah, I feel like I find people quite well like carrying this memory about during my life.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Wow, I love that. And I love so much about what you've said of the impact of network school. Have you done anything else in your life where you didn't know what you were going into?

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Net for school is a unique experience in every way to see this project. Maybe close to when I started my journey as a developer. Well, I just applied to workshop, it was Rails Girls, yeah. It was RailsGirls workshop, and I was like, I should try what is this, because before that workshop, I used my laptop just watching movies, not even YouTube. I didn't know about YouTube at all. I was just like finding my favorite TV shows or etc. or movies to watch them, yeah. And when I participate in this workshop, I was like, I don't understand anything what's going on here, but I feel like I need to go deeper. So yeah, and that was my starting point to my developer business analyst career. Maybe close to network school, it was this workshop, but nothing will come even close to experience what I live in network school.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Well said. Was there anything that you wanted to say before we started that uh we may not have even talked about before we hit record?

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Maybe just if you're someone watching or listening, uh just try to be open to not to people, I mean to the life, to try new experiences. I mean everyone says it, every like blogger, many articles say about this, and it's really hard to push yourself to be more open, especially if you are from part of part of the world where it's not something that you usually experience that you are grew up with because for instance my experience uh conversation with you even from the first time until now, maybe even uh it's not usual for my experience. I mean the people who are always in a good mood in uh just trying to make others feel good to caring about others. I was like, what is happening? Why are you always so happy? And then David she's Australian, we are all like that. Like oh it makes sense. So yeah, just try to be open to life and see people who they really are, and not try to not judge. I mean, not judge in a bad way, uh just don't make some labels for them.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Maybe that was one of the things surprised people can surprise there. Maybe that was one of the things that we loved about being in network school, that there was an openness to get to know other people, and there wasn't that judgment. I have a feeling it was the kinds of people that were attracted, and sometimes experiences that don't have agendas that take a big effort to both apply and then the thrill of getting in, and then an experience that doesn't have an agenda, and a big effort getting on a plane and paying for plane tickets or long journeys that attracts a certain kind of person. We were very, very lucky that the people who turned up were who they were. Absolutely. Elvera, I really want to thank you for speaking English for me. I so appreciate that you said before we hit record that you hadn't been speaking English in a while, and in our friendship I've always appreciated that you speak English to me. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the Natural Genius Podcast. Please share this with anyone who came to mind and visit us at naturalgenious.com.au. Thanks so much.