| Rauan Kenzhekhanuly | |
| Birth Date: | 1 May 1979 |
| Birth Place: | East Kazakhstan Region, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union |
| Nationality: | Kazakh |
| Known For: | Founder of WikiBilim |
| Awards: | Wikipedian of the Year (2011) |
Rauan Kenzhekhanuly (Kazakh: Рауан Кенжеханұлы, in Kazakh pronounced as /ɾɑwˈɑn kenʑeχɑnʊˈlə/; born 1 May 1979) is a Kazakh entrepreneur and NGO activist who was named the first Wikipedian of the Year in August 2011 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales at Wikimania.[1]
Rauan Kenzhekhanuly was born on 1 May 1979 in the East Kazakhstan Region, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union. In 2001, he graduated from Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University with a bachelor's degree in international affairs.
In 2005–2006, he worked as a Press secretary and Head of the Department of Cultural and Humanitarian Cooperation of the Embassy of Kazakhstan in the Russian Federation.[2]
During his university years, he served as the Program Coordinator for National Debate Center Public Foundation and chief-editor of the Youth TV program "Azamat" on the Kazakh national TV channel Khabar. After he joined Khabar, he became the economic observer and National TV Agency's Moscow bureau chief in Russian Federation.[3]
In 2010, he traveled to the United States to do a one-year fellowship at Harvard University, where, that Fall, he first became interested in editing Wikipedia upon taking the class "Media, Politics, and Power in the Digital Age".[4] That same year, he was named one of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs's fellows for 2010–2011.[5] He later founded the nonprofit organization WikiBilim, which aims to expand the availability of free Kazakh-language information on the Internet.[4] In 2014, he was named deputy governor of the Kyzylorda Region.[6]
He also served as the founding director of the Eurasian Council on Foreign Affairs, which was formally established on 12 November 2014[7] with a grant from the Kazakh government.[8]
In 2016, he founded the non-profit organization Bilim Foundation with the mission to set up a national program of adolescence suicide prevention and developing lifeskills.
In 2017, he was appointed as the chief of commission for the national project "translating 100 textbooks for HE to Kazakh language".