Aung Aung

Born and raised in Myanmar (Burma), one of the more politically contentious areas of Asia, Aung experienced several political crises throughout his life that encouraged him to find ways to promote greater tolerance and cooperation among people in Myanmar. Before studying in the U.S. in 2009, he studied in Myanmar (1993-1997), Japan (2004-2005) and South Korea (2006-2007). In 2008, he officially resigned from the Government Service and decided to pursue his dream of doing something innovative and more socially useful. He received the rotary peace fellowship from the Rotary Foundation in 2009, and then studied at Duke University in the U.S. as a peace fellow for two years. After obtaining a M.A. in Peace and Conflict Resolution, in 2011, he returned to Myanmar to pursue his professional path in the peace and conflict sector. So far, he worked for the Internal Revenue Department (IRD) (1993-1998), the Myanmar Investment and Commercial Bank (MICB) (1998-2008), Save the Children International (SCI) (2008-2009), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2011-2012), the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2013), The Delegation of European Union in Myanmar (EU) (2014-2019) and The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) (2022-to date). He regularly writes articles on education, peace and politics in Burmese for journals and newspapers under the pen-name Aung Aung (IR) and also served as guest researcher at the Institute for Security Development Policy (ISDP) in Sweden (2012) and as visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore (2018) and of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS) in Japan (2019-2020). Moreover, bearing in mind the motto of Rotary International ‘Service Above Self’, Aung Aung has also been voluntarily sharing his experience in studying aboard and working with INGOs to youths in Myanmar during weekends since 2017 to promote peace and development through education.