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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 works in an executive role as the Manager of Communications (including Online Content and Community) at Connecting Up Australia, which is a nonprofit organisation that helps to strengthen and to build resources and programs for other nonprofits in Australia and the Asia Pacific region. They are the Australian partner of TechSoup Global. Some of the organisation’s programs include: a nonprofit technology conference, a national directory, and the technology donations and discounts program.

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). You can find out more about her current speaking/presentation schedule.

Writing ~ Media ~ Publishing

Shai is a published writer with various bylines to her credit – from Elle Magazine to Woman Today. She is also a published children’s book author. She has also written for About.com, a company of The New York Times.

Shai has been interviewed and featured in various media outlets worldwide – from television (ABS-CBN) to radio (SBS Radio Australia) and magazines (Reader’s Digest) to newspapers (The Advertiser, Sydney Morning Herald, Manila Bulletin, etc) – plus a number of web publications. She has been included in lists like “Most Influential Women in Technology: Bloggers” by Fast Company in 2009, among others. See here for details of 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.

One of Shai’s more prominent ventures was co-founding a start-up called b5media, Inc, an online media network based in Toronto, Canada, which raised approximately US$10M in funding in 2007-2008.

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