myME Leadership Team:
Tim Aye Hardy, Grace (Swe Zin Htaik), Karen Zusman, Elisa Pigeron, Matt Namer, Myat Noe Zaw, Wint Wint Htet Hlaing, U Aung Kyaw Min and in loving memory of our team member, Stephan Poppick, a life-long educator and friend of myme.
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Yangon Team NYC Team
Myme Founder and Director, Tim Aye Hardy was born and raised in Burma (Myanmar), and grew up under multiple repressive military regimes. Tim actively participated and spoke out during the 1988 student-led protests in Burma by giving speeches to thousands of students on human rights, freedom, peace and oppression while he was attending Rangoon Art and Science University. Later, he was expelled from the university due to his involvements and participation during the protests and narrowly escaped multiple arrests and crackdowns by the Burma’s military regime. Tim left Burma to the U.S. in 1989 after another brutal military coup took control of the country. He attended California Polytechnic University, Pomona and San Diego State Universities, and earned B.S. and M.S degrees in Computer Science in 1998 and 2007 respectively. Tim is an Inaugural Carl Wilkens Fellow with Genocide Intervention Network (www.genocideintervention.net), Chairperson of the International Forum Planning Committee with the UNESCO Chair & Institute of Comparative Human Rights (www.unescochair.uconn.edu), Member or the Central Working Committee and New York Coordinator for Citizen of Burma (www.CitizenOfBurma.org), work with refugee resettlement agencies in San Diego since 2004 to assist refugees and closely working with Burmese community in NYC on various humanitarian and social justice issues and related activities. |
Grace Swe Zin Htaik is a former Academy Award winning actress and a graduate from Institute of Economics, Yangon in 1977. She received Diploma in Accountancy, Registered Law and Diploma in French in 80s. In 2002, she became a Media Fellowship from the University of Southern California. She was awarded as "Ambassador for Peace" by Universal Peace Federation, New York in 2007 and obtained Supreme Diploma in Abhidhamma from Int'l Institute of Abbhidhamma, Yangon in 2009. Since 2000, Grace was one of the pioneer to conduct mass media campaign for various social issues like HIV, TB, Hygiene, Human Trafficking & Women Empowerment by performing as a liaison between the local government, departments, corporations and the management team of international organizations to pursue, formulate and explore various entries. Grace performed as "Chairperson Jury" for "Hyderabad Short, Doc & Animation competition" in 2010 and member jury for "Freedom of Democracy, Short, Doc & Animation Festival", organized by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in 2013. |
Karen Zusman first visited Burma in 2004 on a meditation visa in order to practice at one of the Buddhist monasteries. She began documenting the lives of ordinary citizens in Burma after returning to the country in the immediate aftermath of the Saffron Revolution in 2007. In 2009 she wrote and produced the multimedia documentary, Please Don’t Say My Name: The Plight of Burmese Refugees Living in Malaysia (www.pleasedontsaymyname.org). Since then, she has continued to cover these stories as a grantee from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and her work has been broadcast on PBS and NPR stations, and featured in The Christian Science Monitor, Witness, The Democratic Voice of Burma, USAtoday, and others. As an independent journalist, she has lectured on the subject of human trafficking of refugees and bonded labor at the UN, and at various universities and high schools around the world. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University’s Graduate Writing Program and also works as a freelance Associate Creative Director at global advertising and branding agencies. |
Elisa Koniski Pigeron grew up in a small town lost in the middle of deep mountains in the heart of Southern France. After getting a B.A. in English in Lyon, France, she was determined to become a language instructor, and came to the United States to complete an M.A. in English Instruction in Austin, TX and an M.A. in Communication in San Diego, CA. Later, she earned her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from UCLA in Los Angeles, CA, as well as her Teaching English as a Second Language certificate. Throughout her studies and beyond, she has acquired diverse pedagogical experiences, teaching a variety of subjects at the college level, including various levels of ESL, French, Linguistics, Speech, and Spanish classes. Professor Koniski is now a tenured Assistant Professor in the Department of Academic Literacy and Linguistics at BMCC, CUNY in New York, NY. She has been involved in the myME project since its inception and is honored to help with curriculum design. She is eager to contribute to the creation of interesting courses for Burmese teashop children to get the most stimulating and thought-provoking educational experience. Through her help, she hopes to show myME project students not only the importance of what is learned in class but also to provoke eagerness and curiosity in them toward acquiring knowledge. |
Ms. Wint Wint Htet Hlaing
is a native Myanmar and was educated in the United States. Wint holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and is a U.S. licensed CPA. Wint spent over 10 years in the U.S. working in financial audits of private and U.S.-listed companies, M&A and Pre-IPO due diligence processes, and financial reporting, planning and risk management. Wint’s industry experience includes insurance, banking, real estate, manufacturing, and U.S. government contracting. In 2013, Wint returned to Myanmar and subsequently joined a Myanmar business conglomerate, Serge Pun & Associates Group of Companies. Wint’s first role with the Group was the head of risk management at Yoma Bank. In July 2014, Wint joined the Group’s Myanmar holding company, First Myanmar Investment Co., Ltd. as a Finance Director to prepare the initial public offering on the Myanmar’s very first Yangon Stock Exchange. In her philanthropic activities, Wint presently serves as a Board Advisor of Myanmar Mobile Education Project and the Yangon Heritage Trust. Wint is also a central executive committee member of Myanmar Women and Children Development Foundation. |
Myat Noe Zaw
was born in Burma to parents who were educators and former prisoners of conscience. She has always been interested in education, human rights and activism. She led and participated in various community events and protests in Washington DC and Maryland areas during her college years at the University of Maryland, where she earned B.S. in Operations Management. She previously worked at Unilever in the logistics and supply chain management. She is currently completing her MSW at the Columbia University School of Social Work and is the business manager at Park Avenue Doctors. Myat brings passion, analytical, and organizational skills to the myME’s leadership team. |
Matthew Namer
is the acting Vice President of Alfa Development, a company that has produced $350MM worth of projects over the span of its thirty year history and will be producing another $300 million dollars worth of eco-friendly buildings in Manhattan over the next several years. Matthew has a keen interest in supporting human rights, educational, and arts charities internationally. In 2010 Matthew took a six-month sabbatical to Southeast Asia, which included teaching English in a small farming village in Laos for a month and travelling around Myanmar (Burma) for a month. Matthew was particularly drawn to Myanmar, and was able to visit and personally donate money and books to eight different monastic schools there. Matthew’s interest in education in Myanmar has not changed since that trip and he is extremely excited to be helping launch and develop the MyME Program platform. |