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Our Team

Board of Trustees

Dr Celia Russell

Co-founder & Chair of Trustees

Celia teaches mathematics in the UK. She has a longstanding interest in how digital technologies can be used to advance education in developing regions.  After her first trip to Myanmar in 2009, Celia teamed up with Paul and other colleagues at the University of Manchester to think of ways a digital library could work in Myanmar and the eTekkatho project began.  Celia led eTekkatho through its early years as a University of Manchester project, and in 2014 co-founded the charity. 

Paul Murphy

Co-founder & Trustee

We are heartbroken to announce that our co-founder Paul Murphy died on 19th March 2023. Paul developed the original technologies that powered our first project, eTekkatho, and led on the finance and governance of the Foundation. With his usual diligence and care, Paul took steps to hand over these roles to ensure the work of the Tekkatho Foundation will continue. 

Ten years ago, Paul drafted our guiding mission to improve access to education in Myanmar, irrespective of where people live, their ethnicity or faith. We remain committed to his principles of keeping the door of education open to all.

Dr Khin Mar Mar Kyi

Trustee

Dr Mar is a social anthropologist, film maker and the winner of ‘excellence in gender research’ award. She holds the inaugural Aung San Suu Kyi Senior Gender Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Dr Mar has previously taught as a lecturer at the Australian National University and was the solo Burmese to serve as a member of International Election Observer of the 2015 election. She is also a senior advisor for various international agencies, including the United Nations, UNFPA, DFID, the EU, and the Humanitarian and Resilience Programme (HARP). She serves as a board member and adviser for many local and international organizations including Australian Myanmar Institute, Oxford Burma Academic Initiatives, Ethnic Peace and Resource Project.

Ed Nash, Trustee

Ed Nash

Trustee

Ed is Senior International Officer at the University of Oxford. He previously worked for the University of Edinburgh and UCL in international communications roles, and prior to that as a journalist in the UK and China. He holds an MA from the University of St Andrews and an MSc in Comparative Public Policy from the University of Edinburgh.

May Tha-Hla

Trustee

May Tha-Hla is a co-founder and trustee of Helping the Burmese Delta, an NGO that builds schools, develops vocational training and livelihood projects, trains community health workers and provides access to safe drinking water in the villages of the Irrawaddy Delta Region.  She has extensive experience in running practical projects that bring about change on the ground and over the years her work has helped improve the life chances of tens of thousands of people in Myanmar.

Tekkatho Foundation Staff

May Thet Khine Nyein

Head of IT

May Thet Khine Nyein joined the eTekkatho team determined to improve access to education in Myanmar.  She was previously a team leader at Yatanaron Teleport, a telecom service provider in Myanmar, and has a BA (Hons) and Master of Computer Science from the University of Computer Studies, Yangon.
 
May Thet Khine Nyein leads on the technical development and delivery of eTekketho.  She is also responsible for the 
eTekkatho MyLibrary project, working to scale up delivery of the eTekkatho digital library through an innovative new capsule technology.

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