Shai Reshef

Business leader, Concerned citizen, Educator/Teacher, Entrepreneur, Idea generator

Shai Reshef is the President and Founder of University of the People (UoPeople) the world's first non-profit, tuition-free, accredited, online university dedicated to opening access to higher education globally. Reshef is an education entrepreneur, having worked in the sector for over 25 years including as chair of KIT eLearning, the online learning partner of the University of Liverpool and the first online university outside the United States. After seeing the power of online education during his time at KIT Reshef saw there was great potential to dramatically increase access to higher education for the millions of qualified students around the world who miss out for financial, geographical, political or social reasons. By creating an online low-cost University model thousands of students around the world would be able to realise their dream of Higher Education, tuition-free. UoPeople was founded in 2009 and opened the gates to its first students in September of that year. The University received accreditation in February 2014. Reshef is an Ashoka fellow, an RSA fellow and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. He was named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business; joined UN-GAID as a High-level Adviser; selected by Huffington Post as the Ultimate Game Changer in Education; nominated as Wired Magazine's People Changing the World; and chosen by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the 100 Top Global Thinkers. As an expert on education and technology, Reshef has spoken at the Clinton Global Initiative; DLD; TedxKC; TedxBerlinSalon; WEF; EG; Google Higher Education Summit; Yale; Harvard; Stanford; and Oxford. Reshef holds a M.A. in Chinese Politics from the University of Michigan.

Making higher education accessible and affordable to all qualified students around the world and about the role it can play in building a more peaceful, tolerant and interconnected world.

Education, Entrepeneurship, Online Education