by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
She passed away peacefully in Sydney, Australia.
Spouse : Saya Dr. Freddie Ba Hli (GBNF)
Fourth of nine siblings : Saya U Tin U (C), Saya U Ba Than (M, GBNF), Dr. Daw Win Hlaing (Ruby), Dr. Myo Tint (GBNF), U Tin Htoon (A60), Saya U Myo Min (UCC), U Thaung Lwin (EC66), Daw Cho Cho Hlaing
Children : Ma Tin Tin Hlaing (UCC) & Ko Htay Aung (EC80, UCC), Ko Tha Hlaing (EC83, UCC), Min Thet Tun (GBNF)
Daw Mya Mya Win (Alison) gave a eulogy.
By Thor Aye
Updated : May 2026
We’re coming to the end now. We’ve said our I love you’s and have started saying our goodbyes, or if you like, our farewells and until-next-times.
But while I have you, let me say thank you for all your love, attention, lessons learned and patience along the way. Thank you for fighting all these long years to stay alive.
Cancer three times in one life? It just doesn’t seem fair. And well it’s not.
You’re a good person who has spent her life in the service of others. A caretaker and healer of our youth, as a pediatrician. A dedicated, dutiful daughter who sacrificed to care for her mother, no matter the cost. A leader and the center of our Burmese community, helping recent immigrants find work, help, housing and most importantly a connection to their community. You were the mom on the block that gave all my friends hugs, kisses, meals, rides and love. Everybody loved you. And how could they not? We were so lucky to have you.
You’re the most important person in my life. I cannot imagine a world, my world without you. But in the same breath, I see how much pain and suffering you’ve already endured. I can see your energy draining and see that the things that once brought you happiness, are now belabored and joyless. I’ll miss your brutally honest feedback, your big warm hugs, your delicious cooking but more than anything, I’ll miss your Unconditional love. No matter what I did, where we were or how long we’d been apart, I knew you’d be thinking about me and missing me too. You’d always support and love me, with no strings attached. I’ve been so blessed to have you in my life.
But Mom, if you’re ready to go. I’m ready to let you. I’ll miss you every day for the rest of my life. Go in peace and with our love and blessings.
You’ll always be in my heart. I love you.
Dr. Khin Nyo Thet,
My dear courageous friend who succumbed to cancer, I will miss you .
You will always be in my prayers.
I love you tha-nge-gyin.
May you rest in peace.
Saw Yu Tint (Alice)
Our heartfelt condolences for your loss.
May she Rest In Peace in a higher abode.
Khin Maung Htay (Tommy Htay), Than Than Htay and family.
Goodbye Dearest Friend Nyo Nyo,
So glad to catch up last year.
As the saying goes ” ရှေ့ကသွားလေတော့နောက်ကလိုက်ခဲ့မယ်”.
We will be following you, the one who left ahead.
Love you.
Desiree
My dear cousin NyoNyo,
May you rest in peace .
My deep and heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family.
Maureen Khin
I’m so sad to hear that Nyo has passed away.
She was so strong and brave right till the end.
My deepest condolences to Ko Swe Aye and family.
Rest in Peace, Nyo, you are suffering no more.
Toni Than
My beloved sister, you were my hero and my confidant.
I will miss you so much. I admired you most for your caring nature towards family and friends, your extraordinary energy, amazing courage and strength. You will always be in my heart and my prayers. May you reside in a more peaceful and higher abode.
Khin Mae Hla
ချစ်ခင်လေးစားရပါသော အံတီခင်ညိုသက် ဘဝတစ်ပါးသို့
ပြောင်းလဲသွားတဲ့အတွက် ကျန်ရစ်သူမိသားစုနဲ့ထပ်တူ
ကြေကွဲ ဝမ်းနည်းရပါတယ်။ အံတီညို ကောင်းရာ သုဂတိ လားပါစေ။
ဒေါ်ခင်ခင်ကြီး၏ အစ်ကို ဦးကိုကိုကြီး + ဒေါ်ငြိမ်းလှဖြူတို့၏
သမီး ဒေါ်ခင်စိန်ယဉ် Khin Sein Yin၊
မြေး ဇော်လင်းဒွေး + ဦးဦးဟန်၊ မြစ် ရဲရင့်လင်းမိသားစု
Zaw Lynn Dwe
Condolences also from
Thank you for all your remembrances and condolences,
Lyn Swe Aye, Mimi Thabyay and Thor
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
Over the years, I attended several mini-gatherings and gatherings hosted by UCC sayas and alumni.
Saya U Soe Paing hosted gatherings (usually dinner meeting) at his house. Sayagadaw Daw Saw Yu Tint (T69) was my class mate. She also attended CPC course.
U Thein Oo, Daw Tin May Lwin and several others help organize the gatherings. U Thein Oo, U Htin Kyaw, Aung Aung and several others provide transportation to or from Saya’s house.
There was fun and laughter at UCC’s 40th Anniversary Gathering.
In January 14, 2018, I attended the 5th UCSY Acariya Pu Zaw Pwe as “Generation Zero” representative and the “Most Senior” (not by age). Several attendees started their studies and/or careers at UCC.
Saw Yan Naing, son of Dr. Saw Naing (Wesley, SPHS59), gave me a ride to the Pu Zaw Pwe. SYN is a nephew of Dr Myo Khin. He is a cousin of Soe Lin Maung (UCC).
Dr. Rafiul Ahad, Ko Khin Zaw,, Ko Aung Myint Oo & Ma Thida Khin, Ko Sein Myint & Sao Mon Sint (Cindy) and Ko Toung hosted UCC gatherings (especially to welcome and alumni visiting US). Ivan Lee hosts an annual joint gathering for UCC and RIT sayas and alumni at his home in New Jersey.
Ko Tin Aung Win, Ko Zaw Tun and Pale Shein organized buffet gatherings. Ko Aung Aung & Ma Kyin Mya are regulars at the gatherings. Some have moved to Thailand and Myanmar.
Saya U Aung Zaw (GBNF), Ko Sein Myint Maung & Khin Aye Mu, Ko Htay Aung & Tin Tin Hlaing organized the gatherings. I met Thandar Htwe Htwe and Khin May Thet.
Ko Sein Tin created a short music video during my visit to Oz in 2006.
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
Saya Dr. Chit Swe founded UCC (Universities’ Computer Center) with the help of Saya U Soe Paing, Saya U Myo Min and Saya U Ko Ko Lay (GBNF). The UCC staff and students address the founding members as Saya Chit, Saya Paing, Saya Myo and Saya Lay.
I have written about Saya Chit in several of my posts. He is a Pioneer and a believer of Life Long Learning, Knowledge Transfer, Leapfrogging Technology and the Talents of the Burmese sayas and students. He is my mentor. More importantly, he allowed me to work on most of his projects (including Preparation for the UCC Project, High School Mathematics Curriculum Change, Children’s Treasury of Knowledge, and Team of System Specialists).
Saya Chit ensured that there would be a component in the UCC Project to invite short term and long term Computer Scientists and Educators to UCC. Professor Harry D Huskey (Past ACM President and a Computing Pioneer) was given the sub contract to help with the academic and professional courses being given at UCC.
Saya Chit made sure that the post-graduate diploma (DAC) and post-graduate Computer Science courses were given under the “Mathematics Department” until a separate CS Department could be opened.
Saya Chit served as Director of UCC in addition to being Professor of Mathematics.
He moved back to RASU, but never lost his passion about his pet baby UCC.
Saya retired as Rector of RASU. He then relocated to Thailand and Australia. Saya continued supervising graduate students in Australia. He is still passionate about UCC, Computers and Education in Burma and beyond.
Saya Chit was succeeded by Saya Dr. Tin Maung as Director of UCC.
Saya Dr. Tin Maung retired as Rector of ICST.
During Saya Tin Maung’s tenure, the Department of Computer Science (DCS) was established under RASU. Saya U Ko Ko Lay (GBNF) was Professor. U Tun Aung Gyaw served as Associate Professor. I was a Lecturer.
The Institute of Computer Science and Technology (ICST) was established in 1988 with Saya Dr. Tin Maung as Rector.
There were initially four Departments :
30 students were admitted to the first B.Sc (Computer Science) course.
15 students were admitted to the first B.Sc. (Computer Technology) course.
ICST later became UCSY (University of Computer Studies Yangon).
There have been gatherings to
In January 2018, I was invited as the Generation Zero Member to attend the ICST/UCSY hosted the 5th Acariya Puzaw Pwe and give a short speech.
During my visit to Yangon in January and February of 2018, I spent almost three whole days writing “Memories of UCC”. I had provided Word and PDF files, but the UCSY sayamas suggested that I should submit a shorter version for the commemorative magazine for the 30th Anniversary has come out.
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
The 5th Acariya PuZaw Pwe of ICST (Institute of Computer Science and Technology) and UCSY (University of Computer Studies Yangon) was held in January 2018.
Saw Yan Naing (son of Dr. Saw Naing and nephew of Saya Dr. Myo Khin (C70) gave me a ride to the SPZ.
The SPZP was held in five batches. As a member of “Generation Zero of UCC”, I covered some milestones of the Introduction of Computers to Burma under the leadership of Sayagyi Dr. Chit Swe.
Ma Nge (Daw Nge Ma Ma Than, GBNF) attended the SPZP.
ICST/UCSY published a commemorative magazine for the 30th Anniversary of the founding of UCC. I wrote “Paying Back to My Alma Mater” (a summary of the 30+ posts about UCC) for the issue.
San Yin Myint (Samanta), one of the organizers for the Pu Zaw Pwe, is a niece of Saya U Win Kyaing (GBNF) and a cousin of U Hla Myint Thein (Maurice Chee, M75).
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
Name: U Soe Paing
Qualification: BS (Stanford), MS (Stanford), MSc. Computer Science (Southampton)
Department: Electrical Communications
Position: Assistant Lecturer, (Jan 1964 to March 1971)
Reason for Leaving: Joined Universities’ Computer Center in April 1971.
Engineering Alumni: Attended First Year Faculty of Engineering, Rangoon University from June to December, 1958.
Reason for Leaving: Awarded State Scholarship to study in USA.
Occupation: Data Processing Adviser (Retired)
Organization: United Nations
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
Saya U Tin Hlaing (M59, GBNF) was Head of the Agricultural Engineering (sub-department of Mechanical Engineering). Had kidney problem, but he did not have access to the two dialysis machines that were for VIP in Burma. Applied for passport and visa to have medical treatment abroad, but he did not receive them in time.
Based on the severity, the frequency and number of dialysis sessions.
Most patients have to visit a hospital or clinic.
A few had to perform dialysis at home.
Saya U Aung Zaw (ex-UCC) is indebted to his spouse Daw Kyawt, who donated her kidney. The love story can be read in Saya Zaw’s first book “Dhamma and Bawa ဓမ္မနဲ့ ဘဝ”. I wrote the Foreword.
He published a second book “Cetana Thi Thar Kan စေတနာ သည်သာ ကံ” which has a section written by me based on his ideas.
U Aung Myint (Henry Lim) served as Chief Editor of the BAPS Newsletter and an Associate Editor of the commemorative issue of “RIT Alumni International Newsletter” for SPZP-2000. He founded the “Golden Padauk” and “Durian” magazines in the San Francisco Bay Area, but at his doctors’ advice, he stopped publishing the magazines to preserve his health. Luckily, he found a match for his kidney transplant. He had a renewed life full of oversea travels.
U Aung Khin (SPHS 63, GBNF) is the second son of Dr. Ko Gyi (MS of EENT hospital). He had two kidney transplants and succumbed while he was trying to have a third transplant.
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
by Hla Min
Updated : May 2026
Olympia was commissioned to produce typewriters for Burmese. It was not trivial to type Burmese and Pali characters. The red keys were used to type vowels; the carriage did not go forward. The black keys were used to type consonants. Back-spacing for half a step was necessary on the Standard Edition to type characters such as “tha gyee”. Manual dexterity was needed to type some “pa sint” characters. The Office edition had extra keys (e.g. tha gyee, common pa sint).
Before the wide spread use of copiers (initiated by Xerox), special care is needed to print multiple copies. We miss the days when we had type perfectly or reasonably well on typewriters using messy carbons. Also, planning to cyclostyle double-sided printing (odd numbered pages first, then repeat with even-numbered pages).
IBM produced Selectric typewriters. “Golf” ball-like character sets had to be installed/replaced.
Wang computers provided word processors for various languages. Ko Htay Aung (Victor, EC80) worked at Wang for a while on the Burmese language project.
The evolution has seen
Chinese characters are used by Chinese, Japanese, Korean. To input them to a computer, various techniques were used. They include (1) large tablets containing the most common characters (2) three corner method (based on the horizontal, vertical and diagonal strokes in the character (3) Romaji (mostly used by Japanese (4) human user to select if there are ambiguities (e.g. in the three corner method).
Burma Research Society (BRS) used transliteration for its journals. For example, “k-o-l” combination represents “ko”. The scheme was used inputting Burmese on Macintosh.
Universities’ Computer Center (UCC) had projects to do Burmese word processing. Saya U Myo Min supervised a project for Ma San Yu Hlaing for “collation” (needed for sorting). Saya U Tun Aung Gyaw and his team (Ko Htay Aung, Ko Soe Myint, …) worked on Cromenco System Three for printing and processing. U Soe Win and team worked on Calcomp graph plotter.
Myanmar Sar Ah Phwe မြန်မာစာအဖွဲ့ Burmese Language Commission) bowed to higher authorities to revise the spelling at least two times.
Fines were imposed on authors and publishers spelling the established way. (e.g. “Ta” တ) instead of the preferred way (e.g. “Tit” တစ်) despite the scholars pointing out the old inscriptions at “Bo ta htaung ဗိုလ်တထောင်” not “Bo tit htaung” pagoda.
CTK (Children’s Treasury of Knowledge) project was delayed to correct the spellings.
It was not easy to write in those days without facing censorship. It was taboo to quote “Dhammata ဓမ္မတာ” poem (by Ananda Thuriya). It was a crime to mention the “setting sun နေ ဝင်”.
HlaMin 