नमस्ते ! मेरो नाम उज्वल हो। मेरो बारेमा नेपालीमा।
•Who am I ?
My name is Ujwal (pronounced – “Ooze-wol”) Thapa. I am a Nepali active political activist and a semi-retired entrepreneur. I live in Kathmandu, Nepal. (Perhaps read my story in detail here)
•What do I do ?
I build 21st century relevant leaders and entrepreneurs for Nepal.
I provoke Nepali citizens to help build a prosperous Nepal within our lifetime.
•How ?
I am actively helping build a BibekSheel Nepali, a rising political force which is creating the 21st century relevant ethical leaders need to build a peaceful, prosperous Nepal in your life-time. Previously I led “विवेकशील साझा BibekSheel Sajha” party. 
I ran for the 2013 Constituent Assembly (CA) elections in a tough constituency Kathmandu-5 as an independent candidate under the “dog” symbol securing 1163 votes in my 1st try.
I am also the co-founder of Entrepreneurs for Nepal, a 100,000 + strong vibrant platform that builds Entrepreneurs in/for Nepal. (Do join its vibrant Facebook group here)
Utilizing my farming roots, I am slowly building a small farmer’s cooperative of (25 farmer families), called Shangrila coffee, an organic coffee farm in Syangja, western Nepal since 2009. We sell organic coffee (arabica). I have a dream that soon, poor families in our villages will sustain their lives locally through coffee and coffee-tourism, and we will be able to bring back our youths who continue to disappear for years to work in ‘Arab’ countries far from Nepal. My dream is to have our villages be famous as coffee -vineyards where people travel from all around the world to “taste” our coffee 🙂
I helped start a citizens movement “Nepal unites” or in Nepali, “परिवर्तनको लागि हामी नेपाली एक” to unite Nepali citizens to become responsible enough to pressure leaders to become accountable so that we can make Nepal prosperous.
I built an alliance against the Bandh (forced shutdowns in Nepal). We regularly defy bandh by various means including vehicle rallies on bandh days. In Facebook it started by being called, “Die Nepal Bandh Die” with over 5000 members. Our motto is “नेपाल खुल्ला छ ! Nepal is (always) open !” Now its purpose has been wholly adopted by BibekSheel Nepali which continues to keep Nepal open (where it is influential) 🙂
•What is my vision for Nepal ?
I believe responsible citizens along with accountable leadership will build a peaceful prosperous Nepal (within my lifetime).
Here is our vision (in detail) for all Nepali to unite into a common sense led organization/movement to build a prosperous Nepal in our life-time.
Do read other articles in whynepal.com which provokes Nepalis to take responsible actions now to build the Nepal we dream of!
• How did I get started?
I went to the US to study Astrophysics but came back to Nepal as a visual artist & multimedia designer. At one time I set out to be a zen monk but instead trained to become a Conflict Resolution Trainer in 2002 trying to teach various warring sides in Nepal and victim youths on how to keep “dialogue” open while fighting with each-other in Nepal’s civil war. At the end of 2002, I started Digital Max Solutions, a website development and social media branding business. Since then, my former employees & associates have gone on to start 30 + similar IT companies in Nepal. I am proud to have played a role in jump-starting a web services IT industry in Nepal. Join our 3,000+ strong IT community called WordPress Nepal which I helped start.
• What else am I passionate about?
I love traveling in Nepal. if you want to travel in Nepal do check out my Nepal travel blog !
I experiment and FAIL often.I started some big projects that have failed. In 2008, I started exoticbuddha.com, a travel help portal with more than 1000 travel articles and helpful answers on traveling in Nepal. It remained a great experiment and helped thousands of travelers while traveling in Nepal. dmslist.com, a job listing portal for Nepal and Nepali all over the world in 2008 and Nepali news aggregation services (like Google news) called newsfeed.com.np (all have ceased to exist along with many other projects that I am still proud of starting. Failures connect the dots towards success !
🙂 And if you didn’t believe me, Here’s my own resume of failures (last updated 2014).
• Why do I write here?
My aim is to provoke you to make build a prosperous Nepal by starting change from yourself first. I write here to share my raw ups and down experiences on leadership, social service and entrepreneurship.
By the way, all my content (except for guest articles) in this blog is un-copyrighted (open-sourced). Here is why.
•How can you keep in touch with me ?
Message me on Facebook or Follow me on twitter here: @ujwalthapa
or email me at ujwal@leadnepal.com
Namaste,
Ujwal or –> Uj, Uji, Ujay, Jay, Ujwale and many other names I am referred to as 🙂
