Shani Evenstein Sigalov is an educator, lecturer, researcher and Free Knowledge advocate, interested in the intersection between education, Technology, Innovation and Openness.

Tel Aviv University
For the past decade, she has served as an EdTech Innovation Strategist at the School of Medicine, and is interested in how technology & pedagogy can be harnessed to improve the way we teach and learn and result is a positive, inspiring and long-lasting learning experience. She is also interested in integrating elements from the Open Knowledge and Open Access movements into the academic curriculum, and am constantly looking for new ways through which academic work can advance gender equality, knowledge equity and have a positive social impact. In this capacity, she has designed and direct the first, for-credit, elective courses in the world to integrate Wikipedia & Wikidata into higher education.
As of 2017, She is pursuing a PhD at the School of Education (Technology & Learning program), where she researches the Semantic Web as a learning platform. As of 2019, she is alo a Research Fellow at the Azrieli Foundation PhD Fellowship Program.

Open & Free Knowledge Advocacy
For over 20 years, Shani has been a passionate advocate for Free and Open Knowledge as a basic human right, initiating / supporting Open Education and Culture, Open & FAIR Science and Open Data initiatives, specifically focusing on projects that highlight gender equality and equity.
She serves as Vice Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, the 5th biggest website in the world, and the 1st Israeli in this position. Shani is also editor-in-chief at Project Ben-Yehuda, the biggest, open & free library in the world for Hebrew writings, and serves as the Chairperson of the non-profit that supports it.

In the past decade, Shani has been heavily involved in governance, strategic design & implementation in complex environments with multiple & diverse stakeholders, has experience in fundraising and advocacy, and has excelled in partnership building, volunteer mobilization and community capacity building in the Global North & South.

She frequently lectures and leads workshops worldwide about topics such as EdTech Innovation, integrating Openness / open access, Governance and strategic planning, the Semantic Web, and collaborating with Wikipedia, Wikidata or Project Ben-Yehuda as examples for Open Innovation involving the "wisdom of the crowd".

She is always happy to join forces with organizations / individuals whose work advance humanity, that are aspiring to expand their capacity in order to have a greater impact in the world.