Tung Bach Ly

The evolution of my community and civic engagement, Chartres Street affords me the capacity to organize and prioritize my engagements. Through consultation, production, creation, and support services I hope to enhance the image, presentation, branding, and growth of diverse local organizations, corporations, and associations committed to the common good.

"Remember last night's party?" we asked each other for weeks on end after the first Evacuteer.org Bye-Bye Hurricane Party. Armed with a camera, a sharpie, and some new fangled technology we asked New Orleans evacuteers and friends to send love notes to the city they adored so much. The cause oriented fine art photography captured the spirit of the night and carried it to building a company. In this company, I add production value from the ground up. Testing best practices and innovating creative new services, I consult with Dear New Orleans as a founding base for a series of affiliate programs across the country.

With VAYLA-NO on the brink of a flash out, I have committed to revitalizing the Board of Directors through a meticulous and strategic position, developing clear vision and executing. Withdrawing from a broad advisory, advocacy, and resource development role, this direct and deliberate effort will provide a foundation for the expansion of VAYLA-NO to a second youth center in the Westbank.

After working with SENO for a year, I have tasked myself to develop information systems and processes to maintain and efficiently disseminate organizational knowledge.

HealthCamp is an unconference inspired by the popular BarCamp conferences, which are intended to allow people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

The purpose of the HealthCamp is to bring together health, fitness and wellness professionals in the Greater New Orleans area to share knowledge, network, and open dialogues around the challenges, issues, and concerns they face every day. As well as, brainstorm, explore and discuss solutions, ideas and the latest innovations, policies and technology available.

One of my most complementary relationships lead to this company where I am a disruptive element, bringing madness to the order of spontaneous creative genius.

As the recovery matured to development, I was promoted to a desk job supporting & managing the Division of Information Services' performance & programmatic objectives across LPHI & Partner Organizations.

Surprised to see me still in New Orleans, a fellow activist invited me to join the board of his organization. Here I inform, support, and engage in Youth Development, Leadership Development, and Civic Engagement programs from the perspective of an engaged citizen of New Orleans.

I met all these like minded people one evening at the Bridge Lounge and found out that they promote, cultivate, and connect local social innovation to opportunities and resources. I had a moment of obligation.

National attention focused on New Orleans and LPHI started to grow by leaps and bounds. I worked to reestablish information technology infrastructure and maintain services. The project I enjoyed the most rapidly deployed a shared information system platform among a heterogeneous healthcare provider group, overcoming organizational and resource challenges in the process. I also was instrumental in developing an automated information extraction system for paper survey forms used to rapidly conduct surveys across 18 of the most severely hurricane-affected parishes in Louisiana.

After Hurricane Katrina and a brief stint in Austin, I picked up a part time job at the neighborhood hardware store. While traveling to Baton Rouge for my other job, I spent some of my best days guiding customers in hardware purchases; custom cutting keys, glass, mirrors, screening, wire, cable, chain, and pipe; inventorying product from warehouse delivery to shelf display; maintaining the computerized inventory system; and worked the register, checkout and accounts receivable.

On the Wednesday before Katrina I joined LPHI. Afterwards I supported a temporary office infrastructure in the months following in Baton Rouge, then prepared weathered and neglected equipment for re-establishment of headquarters in New Orleans.

While handling some kinks with my thesis my superiors saw potential and asked me to man the helpdesk as the Mac guru. Along with my unique expertise I provided students, staff, and faculty with technical assistance for end-user software applications, electronic classrooms, and consumer hardware; troubleshot configuration, network, and account problems. I pretty much addressed any general technology concern.

After vacationing with my family all summer, I took a good study job. All I had to do was maintain the Richardson Computerized Classroom and manage the lab workstations. The rest of the time I could study and socialize.

When I started staying in New Orleans for the summer, I needed a "job" to fill some time. This opportunity was perfect for me. Here I guided students, staff and faculty in hardware and software purchases, took inventory of product and maintained the shelf display, ordered products no available in stock and oversaw distribution. I kept with it until my mentor left.

This was my first "job." The responsibility meant I "required" a car. Here I managed restaurant seating and predicted wait times and took carry out orders. I was proud of my work and took it as supervising the customer experience from entry to exit.

Biomedical Engineering

Activities: Tulane University Vietnamese Association, President (2003-2004), Secretary (2002-2003).