Central Asia 2050
Call for Essays
A REGIONAL ANTHOLOGY OF FORWARD-LOOKING IDEAS
- Why this matters
- Central Asia is writing a new chapter. By 2050 our five countries can be prosperous, connected, and resilient - but only if today’s emerging leaders set the agenda. Your essay will feed that agenda and spark public debate.
- Who we want
- Age up to 45, living in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan
- Active and established in academia, business, civil society, the arts, or public policy
- Ready to argue boldly and back ideas with clear reasoning
- What to submit
- One essay, ≈700 words, in English or your native language
- Deadline: 1 June 2025
- Hashtags: #CentralAsia2050 #CAFutureVoices, #BuildCA2050, #CA2050foresight, #CAForwardFrom2025
- 100 essays
Expected number of contributors - 5 countries
KZ, KG, TJ, TM, UZ - 700 words
In English or your native language
Beginnings
What is your vision for Central Asia in 2050?
Picture this: it’s 2050, you crack open a freshly printed book in Tashkent, Bishkek, Astana, Ashgabat, or Dushanbe, and there on the first pages are names you know - yours among them. Some belong to people who now run a city, launch biotech firms, or manage a station in low-Earth orbit. The project starts today to give voice to those who will shape the stretch of land between the Caspian and the Pamirs a quarter-century from now.
We are looking for writers up to 45 y.o. It makes no difference whether you solve quantum-chemistry puzzles, stage plays in Almaty, or lead grassroots campaigns in Khujand. What matters is a clear idea of what must change and the nerve to lay it out without hiding behind familiar formulas.
The formalities are simple. Write about 700 words, in English or your native language. Submit your essay by 1 June 2025.
As for content, begin with dawn on the first of May 2050. Think about the air, the streets, the faces, the scope of the ideas people trade over coffee. Anchor your vision in a strength the region already holds - the asar tradition of collective mutual aid, the Karakalpak wind, or the code our programmers write after work - and name one step that must start no later than 2030 to make that future tangible.
What we do NOT want: hollow slogans or easy nostalgia. Give us living scenes, argue with dogma, swap abstractions for concrete examples. Let the prose be sharp enough that a civil servant sets it in a special folder and human enough that a high-school student in Bukhara or Osh reads to the last line.
Chosen essays will appear in print. You’ll gain a stage wider than any personal blog and meet fellow authors - online and face-to-face—whose ideas may challenge or reinforce your own. Twenty-five years later, leafing through those yellowed pages, you may notice that some dreams have become routine - because someone dared to spell them out back in 2025.
If that someone might be you, open a blank document and start describing your day in 2050. The rest is the editors’ work - and time’s.
We are looking for writers up to 45 y.o. It makes no difference whether you solve quantum-chemistry puzzles, stage plays in Almaty, or lead grassroots campaigns in Khujand. What matters is a clear idea of what must change and the nerve to lay it out without hiding behind familiar formulas.
The formalities are simple. Write about 700 words, in English or your native language. Submit your essay by 1 June 2025.
As for content, begin with dawn on the first of May 2050. Think about the air, the streets, the faces, the scope of the ideas people trade over coffee. Anchor your vision in a strength the region already holds - the asar tradition of collective mutual aid, the Karakalpak wind, or the code our programmers write after work - and name one step that must start no later than 2030 to make that future tangible.
What we do NOT want: hollow slogans or easy nostalgia. Give us living scenes, argue with dogma, swap abstractions for concrete examples. Let the prose be sharp enough that a civil servant sets it in a special folder and human enough that a high-school student in Bukhara or Osh reads to the last line.
Chosen essays will appear in print. You’ll gain a stage wider than any personal blog and meet fellow authors - online and face-to-face—whose ideas may challenge or reinforce your own. Twenty-five years later, leafing through those yellowed pages, you may notice that some dreams have become routine - because someone dared to spell them out back in 2025.
If that someone might be you, open a blank document and start describing your day in 2050. The rest is the editors’ work - and time’s.
How to frame your piece
Pick the angle that suits you:
- Looking Inward
Revisiting the Old
• Heritage, identity, social mobility
• Traditions worth reclaiming - Looking Outward
Revisiting the Old
• External partnerships, diaspora ties
• Lessons from global history - Uncharted Waters• New civic values, demographic shifts
• Fresh models of governance - Uncharted Waters• Tech, space, green energy, regional trade
• Central Asia’s place in a networked world
Three Good Questions
Write with conviction, cite real examples where helpful, and keep jargon to a minimum. We want readers across the region - and beyond -to grasp your vision and feel the momentum.
- Future PictureIn one vivid scene, describe daily life in Central Asia on 1 May 2050. What has fundamentally changed for the better?
- Roots & ResourcesWhich existing strength—cultural, natural, or institutional - must we double down on to reach that future, and how do we modernize it without losing its essence?
- First five-year sprintName one concrete action that governments, business, or citizens can start by 2030 to put the region firmly on the path you laid out. Explain why it is both feasible and game-changing.
Submit your Essay by June 1, 2025
Every submission will be read with care; a curated selection will appear in the anthology so the final book shines as brightly as the region it represents.
We look forward to your voice shaping Central Asia 2050
Credits
Editors — Aziza Umarova, Dina Iglikova, Syinat Sultanalieva