Shai Reshef is the Founder & President of the University of the People (UoPeople).
An educational entrepreneur, Reshef has twenty years of experience in the international education market. From 1989 to 2005, he served as Chairman of the Kidum Group, a for-profit educational services company which was sold to Kaplan, Inc. in 2005. Between 2001 and 2004, while continuing as the chairman of Kidum, Reshef lived in the Netherlands where he chaired KIT eLearning, a subsidiary of Kidum, the eLearning partner of the University of Liverpool and the first online university outside of the United States.
Reshef has been widely recognized for his work with University of the People. In 2009, Reshef was named one of Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business,” selected by OneWorld as one of its “People of 2009” and awarded a fellowship by Ashoka. He also joined the United Nations’ Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID) as a High-level Adviser. In August 2010, on behalf of UoPeople, Reshef was granted membership to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The following month, recognized for “taking the world to school,” Reshef was selected as the Ultimate Game Changer in Education, an honor awarded by The Huffington Post to visionaries, and leaders who are transforming their fields through innovation.
An expert on innovations in education and the intersection of education and technology, Reshef has spoken internationally at conferences including the Clinton Global Initiative in New York; UN-GAID Global Forum in Monterrey, Mexico; DLD: Digital, Life, Design in Munich, Germany; Hacking Education in New York; the World Economic Forum on the Middle East in Jordan and Morocco; and Fourth University Industry Council Symposium in Kolkata, India. He has also lectured several times at Yale University on the future of digital education, presented the keynote address at Google’s Higher Education Summit and appeared at Harvard University as part of its Berkman Luncheon Series. Additionally, Reshef participated in Science Foo Camp (SciFoo), an informal discussion, demonstration and debate with over 200 of the leading scientists, technologists, writers and other thought-leaders.
Reshef holds an M.A. from the University of Michigan in Chinese Politics.
