Faculty & Staff

Elena Chigibaeva is a Coordinator of Social Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking concentration and Instructor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences department at the American University of Central Asia. She holds an honored diploma from the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University in Organizational Management (2008, Kyrgyzstan) and a mini-MBA certificate from the Business Academy of the Center for Training and Consulting in Marketing Management (2008). 

Elena joined AUCA in 2023. Elena has managed several startups in diverse sectors and has extensive experience working with international organizations like ADB, GIZ, USAID, and UNDP. She is the co-founder and CEO of WeinCrypto DAO, a social startup empowering youth and women through web3 technologies to reduce the gender gap in Web3 and accelerate digital transformation in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. In 2019, after participating in the TechWomen Program, with other fellows Elena co-founded the Techaim Foundation, where she served as CEO until 2022, overseeing over 20 STEAM education projects that impacted 5000 women and youth in the country. She is a 2018 TechWomen fellow, having interned at Silicon Valley’s BigCommerce company, and a 2023 fellow at the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center's NFT Talents program. Elena is also a recognized mentor and speaker, awarded in 2023 as the Best Mentor for the DEVCIT USAID-funded project empowering women entrepreneurs in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.