Geek Girls: Rewriting the Code of Success in the Land of Temples and Tealeaf

May Thi Bo, entrepreneur, programmer, geek girl (photo courtesy of May Thi Bo and Shady Ramadan)

On the morning of November 15, with a light breakfast under her belt, May Thi Bo arrived at the headquarter of Project Hub Yangon (PHY) to present her idea for Smart Deals Myanmar, an online destination for daily discounts and deals. May, along with seven other women, had been looking forward to this day with a mix of anticipation and anxiety. It was their chance to directly appeal to members of the business community in Rangoon to support their budding ventures. They were the second batch of entrepreneurs spawned by PHY's start-up incubation program. But an all-too-common power outage threatened to turn each pitch into a shot in the dark, quite literally.

With folders and projectors in tow, the PHY assembly -- the presenters, organizers, and about twenty potential investors -- marched two blocks along Alan Pya Pagoda Road to Park Royal Hotel, the backup site for the event. Here, in a well-lit conference room, the aspiring businesswomen got to deliver their well-rehearsed presentations.

To May's relief, the meeting was not the palm-sweating, nerve-wrecking, cutthroat atmosphere of Shark Tank. Quite the opposite. "Even before the pitch, we were chitchatting with the guests over coffee and snacks. It was a convivial setting, not intimidating at all," May recalled. Nevertheless, as she got ready to share her vision, it did take May some effort to steady her voice. Her vision, simply put, was a Groupon-like service for Burmese shoppers.

Still in her early twenties, May is too young to have witnessed the bloodshed of Burma's 1988 uprising, but old enough to have seen the Buddhist monks' wounds and bruises in the 2007 Saffron Revolution. A graduate of the Yangon University of Foreign Languages, May speaks fluent English. She also speaks PHP, a scripting language she mastered while working in software development.

"I was first toying with the idea of a restaurant directory," she said. "But after speaking to the mentors [at PHY], I became interested in the idea for online coupons." As she polished her pitch, she was also negotiating partnerships with fashion shops, cosmetic shops, and food outlets. "[The idea] is a novelty here, so traditional consumers may not accept it at first," she admitted.

Burma's quasi-civilian government, largely populated with members of the former regime, has pledged to implement earnest democratic reforms. But the government's heavy-handed treatment of the country's nascent free press, its failure to secure a nationwide peace agreement with the ethnic groups, and the Army's unwillingness to relinquish its parliamentary veto power suggest those political reform initiatives are losing steam or -- worse -- backsliding.

Despite its wobbly steps toward Democracy, Burma proves irresistible to many investors. As McKinsey & Company puts it, "Home to 60 million inhabitants (46 million of working age), this Asian nation has abundant natural resources and is close to a market of half a billion people. And the country’s early stage of economic development gives it a 'greenfield' advantage: an opportunity to build a 'fit for purpose' economy to suit the modern world. Managed well, Myanmar could conceivably quadruple the size of its economy, from $45 billion in 2010 to more than $200 billion in 2030 -- creating upward of ten million nonagricultural jobs in the process." ("Myanmar’s moment: Unique opportunities, major challenges," June 2013).

Shwe Dagon's gold spires seem to have also caught the eyes of some start-ups and tech firms that have become culture-shaping forces in their own rights. San Francisco-headquartered Airbnb, which challenges the established hotel and hospitality industry with its user-supplied short-term rental listings, has just posted a call for candidates who could be the company's acquisition specialist in Burma. VMWare, the leading name in hardware virtualization, is looking for a territory manager for Burma.

Under the previous military rule and the Burmese Socialist Programme Party's reign that came before, the scope of opportunities available for enterprising women were limited mostly to opening up cosmetic shops or peddling homemade goods in a nearby bazaar. But today, the arrival of advocacy groups that combine technology mentorship and social missions seems to be encouraging May Thi Bo and her peers to think different. They discovered they might be able to rewrite their destiny by writing code.

"When I finished matriculation, I scored enough to go to medical school, but I didn't want to," May said. "My older sister is my inspiration to become a programmer. I watched what she did." Her plan for Smart Deals Myanmar, she revealed, is to "launch the website first, then, when that's settled, to develop an app with a programmer friend's help and release it."

Last year, Sarah Oh left the San Francisco fog and Golden Gate Bridge and relocated to Rangoon. It was the beginning of her assignment as PHY's project manager. She has been working with May and the rest of the women selected to be part of PHY's Project W.

"The women often juggle several roles in their families," Sarah observed. "Many women have several obligations to their family, husbands and, in some cases, their children. These responsibilities, at times, made it challenging for the women to work on launching their business. They simply had less time to dedicate to their business."

To be able to withstand the emotional roller-coaster ride of startups, May and other tech-savvy women of Burma would need to band together and find solace in camaraderie. Some of them belong to Geek Girls Myanmar, an online community that trades programming know-how and offers support. The group held its second in-person meetup a week ago at Monument Books & Gusto Cafe. Here, within walking distance from the mausoleum where General Aung San and his assassinated cabinet ministers rest, Burma's girl programmers traded war stories and mingled over waffles, pizzas, and chicken wings. On the same day, the group's debut tweet went out.

Hello world, we are the community of women in tech from Myanmar. We juz started tweeting here to know more people across the globe. :)
— Geek Girls Myanmar (@GeekGirlsMM) November 19, 2014

PHY's Sarah cautioned, "The startup culture in Yangon is nascent. There is less of everything, including resources, investors, community and family support. However, ambition and good ideas are in supply. In fact, the young Burmese men and women I've spent time with the last few months are very entrepreneurial. At the same time, they face enormous challenges including receiving family support and infrastructure (e.g., internet, good roads, etc.) Starting a business in Myanmar is not easy, but many Burmese entrepreneurs are trying anyway. They are passionate about delivering products that meet the unique needs of the Burmese people."

Some overseas Burmese entrepreneurs returning home may also be importing the adventurous business spirit they'd adopted abroad. Sarah said, "An exciting development has been seeing repatriates bring ideas and products from foreign countries back home to Burma to deliver new or more innovative products."

One of the biggest hurdles confronting May Thi Bo and fellow geek girls is the country's data-choking slow internet connection. Examining "The Roots of Myanmar's Internet Woes (December 2013)," Myanmar Times wrote, "Compounding the problem is the incredibly high cost for access and the incredibly low international bandwidth, 900 times less than neighboring Singapore and the lowest in the region. (Bandwidth describes the capacity to upload and download information over a period of time.) Citizens who are able to go online have an incredibly small capacity to download and upload information."

May, like many other Burmese, relies on her mobile phone to connect. "It takes about 2-3 minutes to upload a photo," she said -- "That's not even a high-resolution photo, just a regular photo."