by Hla Min

Updated : September 2026

Founders of UCC

Dr. Chit Swe

• 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.

U Soe Paing

• Transferred from RIT EE Department to UCC as Manager of Systems Division.
• He managed Computer Engineers, Technicians and System Programmers.
• He later also served as Manager of Operations Division.
• He retired from UN after working for projects in several countries.

U Myo Min

• He was a Gold Medalist for I. Com and B. Com (Acct).
• He received C A (Chartered Accountant) and worked as Systems Analyst at IBM UK.
• He returned to Burma to help establish UCC.
• He joined UCC as Manager of Applications Division.
• He later taught at Nang Yan Institute in Singapore.
• He retired as Principal of Seagate and Connors.
• He is studying the impact of AI on Buddhist Studies.

U Ko Ko Lay

• He was a classmate of U Soe Paing at St. Paul’s High School and Stanford University.
• He transferred from PWD to UCC as Manager of Operations Division.
• After reorganization of UCC, he served as Manager of Scientific Applications Division.
• He became Professor at the Department of Computer Science, RASU.
• He later served as Professor of Information Technology at ICST.
• He is now GBNF.

Projects of Dr. Chit Swe

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).

Vision

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.

Passion

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 Bangkok, Thailand and Sydney, Australia. He continued advising graduate students in Thailand and Australia.

To the very end, Saya was still passionate about UCC, Computers and Education in Burma and beyond.

He passed away in Sydney.

Dr. Tin Maung

He was a Mathematics Lecturer at RASU. He succeeded Dr. Chit Swe as Director of UCC.

He retired as Rector of ICST.

DCS

During his tenure, the Department of Computer Science (DCS) was established under RASU.

Saya U Ko Ko Lay (GBNF, brother of U Than Htut M67) was Professor.

U Tun Aung Gyaw served as Associate Professor.

I was a Lecturer.

ICST

The Institute of Computer Science and Technology (ICST) was established in 1988 with Saya Dr. Tin Maung as Rector.

There were initially four Departments :

• Hardware Technology (with U Tun Aung Gyaw as Associate Professor and Head)
• Software Technology (with me as Associate Professor and Head)
• Information Systems (with Saya U Ko Ko Lay as Professor and Head)
• Computational Mathematics

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).

Gatherings

There have been gatherings to

• celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the founding of UCC
• celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the founding of ICST
• 5th Acariya Puzaw Pwe of ICST/UCSY in January 2018
• 6th Acariya Puzaw Pwe of ICST/UCSY in December 2019

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.