Speaker Profile & Topic of Interest # 4

L Naw San is the member of the Kachin community in the Bay Area.
Since completing his study from the Philadelphia Biblical university, he’s been working with San Francisco Baptist church to raise awareness of the Kachin and their issues. And he also works on projects to promote Kachin language and literature.
Previously, he worked for the English department of Myanmar Institute of Theology. During Cyclone Nargis, he was the logistics coordinator for the Samaritan’s Purse International Relief organization.

Speaker Profile & Topic of Interest # 3

Min Zin is pursuing his Ph.D. in the Political Science Department at the University of California, Berkeley.  He got involved in student activism early in his life when in 1988, as a 14-year-old high school student, a pro-democracy movement swept through Burma. He went into hiding in 1989 to avoid arrest by the military, and his underground activist-cum-writer life lasted for nine years until he fled across the Thai-Burma border in August 1997. Min Zin worked for the Thailand-based Irrawaddy magazine, as an assistant editor. Shifting from print to radio journalism, from 2004 to 2007 Min Zin worked as an international broadcaster with the Washington-based Radio Free Asia (Burmese Service). He holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Min Zin also worked as an instructor responsible for International Visiting Scholars' Program at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Journalism from 2008 to 2010. He serves as Burma’s country analyst for several research foundations including Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). His writings appear in The Irrawaddy, The Bangkok Post, Far Eastern Economic Review, Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

Speaker Profile & Topic of Interest # 2

Aung Din, Executive Director, Co-Founder US Campaign for Burma

 He co-founded the Washington, DC-based U.S. Campaign for Burma, an umbrella group of Burmese dissidents in exile and American activists, in 2003.

He is also country representative of the Thai-Burma border-based “Assistance Association for
Political Prisoners-Burma” (AAPP). He has been quoted in hundreds of media articles, testified
before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Congressional Human Rights Caucus,
House Committee on Foreign Affairs and U.S. Commission of International Religious Freedom.

He wrote opinion pieces in several newspapers, including Asia Time, Wall Street Journal,
Foreign Policy and the Irrawaddy. He traveled on speaking tours across the United States.
He received a Master Degree of International Service from American University’s School of
International Service in 2007, a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Singapore
Institute of Management in 2000 and a Degree of Bachelor of Engineering from Rangoon
Institute of Technology in 1994.


His article on Irrawaddy -
Dam Lies and Statistics @   http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=22195?

Speaker Profile & topic of interest # 1

Grace Mang, China Global Program Coordinator
Ms. Mang coordinates International Rivers' efforts to strengthen the environmental and social standards of China's overseas dam builders and their global environmental footprint. Before joining International Rivers in 2010, she worked as an environment and water Policy Adviser in the Australian Prime Minister's Department on major environmental reform issues such as river basin management of the Murray-Darling basin, national environment protection laws and biodiversity protection strategies. Ms. Mang is a lawyer by training and specializes in environment and water law. She graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Economics and Law.  

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/blog/grace-mang

Topic of interest

-  Investment of china on dams in overseas
- Assessment on china's project in Burma
- IRN's  action and work on highlighting environment issues of China' dams