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About

Why Do You Take Self Portraits?Shai Coggins is a passionate participant of life. She loves learning and enjoys sharing her knowledge and expertise in various aspects of her eclectic life.

Currently, Shai is the Chief Verve and Founder of Vervely, a digital media and community engagement agency. Here, she offers a number of services and programs for nonprofits, SMEs, and social enterprises.

Prior to this, she worked in an executive role as the Manager of Communications, Content and Community at Connecting Up, Inc, a nonprofit organisation that has a national reach in Australia and an international network. She was also co-founder of an international start-up called b5media, Inc, an online media network which was based in Toronto, Canada, which raised approximately US$10M in funding in 2007-2008. This company later sold to Alloy Media.

Shai was honoured as one of the “Most Influential Women in Technology: Bloggers” by Fast Company (2009), and has been listed in a number of ‘top lists’ in the areas of blogging and social media. For more about her accolades, check out the press/media page.

Speaking ~ Training ~ Workshops ~ Events

Shai is a sought after speaker/presenter and content contributor in the topics of social media, communications, writing, entrepreneurship for women, technology, and online community. She has presented in events like TechSoup Global Summit (San Francisco, 2011), BlogWorld Expo (via b5media summit, Las Vegas, 2008), Microsoft NGO Days (Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, 2010-2011), Making Links (Perth, 2010), and Nonprofit Technology Conference (Washington DC, 2011; San Francisco, 2012). She has also spoken at events by Social Media Club Adelaide, Philanthropy Australia, and Associations Forum. Shai was also a committee member at the 2011 and 2012 Connecting Up nonprofit conference, where she keynoted in 2011 and was voted as one of the Top 4 presenters in 2012. She received over 90% approval ratings. You can find out more about her press/media mentions.

Entrepreneurship ~ Business

Entrepreneurship runs in Shai’s blood. She has started her involvement in business at a very young age, thanks to the influence of her parents who owned retail shops and properties in Manila when she was growing up. Shai has helped to run their family businesses and even started some of her own, including a consulting company, retail shops, training, writing, and online sales.

Education ~ Psychology ~ Nonprofit

Shai has a Masters’ Degree in Applied Psychology (Singapore) and a four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology (Manila). She was working on getting registered in the field of psychology in Australia, before she went on leave in 2007. She worked for a number of nonprofit organisations in Australia, Singapore, and Manila, both as a professional and as a volunteer from 1993.

In 2009, Shai enrolled in a postgraduate program to study Master of Teaching (Special Education) in Australia, where she consistently received high marks and the University Award for Literacy Education (having received the highest mark in literacy studies in her year). She is still due to complete this degree.

Art ~ Creativity

As an individual with a flair for creative expression, some of Shai’s artwork is in various collections worldwide. Between 2002-2004, Shai sold approximately 200 paintings in different parts of the globe. She loves painting, collage, mixed media, photography, digital art, and different forms of craft.

Travel ~ Culture ~ Family

As a keen traveller, Shai has visited about 50 cities around the world. Originally from Manila, she has also lived in the USA and Singapore – before calling Australia home. She is now based in Adelaide with her husband and two young children.

CONTACT SHAI

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What Others Say…

  • “Shai has a wealth of reading material with different projects, arts and crafts, and news in general. I promise you, a visit to her blog will be time well spend. I’ve come to think of Shai Coggins’ blog as a virtual Target store. I may go in for one thing, but by the time I leave I have an entire cart full of goodies!” – Kari Rohl (of Urban Wallflower), on Someone to Look Up To

  • “Shai Coggins, she’s the goddess of all things blog. She’s a very interesting piece of work!” – Simon (of gtvone, absolute ramblings)

  • “The rather intellectually scrummy and exceptionally clever Shai Coggins (in another life she would have either have been burnt at the stake for being too clever or called a ‘polymath’)…” – by Lee Hopkins, Better Communication Results, from this post