Author Dan Haig is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Smitten by Tibet and Tibetans while hitchhiking on the Tibetan plateau in 1988, he has served the Tibetan nation, people and culture for 30 years, as a communications infrastructure developer, strategist for the global Tibet support movement, staff member of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, and University of Virginia faculty researcher.
In 1994 Haig abandoned his academic career and life in Wisconsin to take a chance on moving out to California. Coaxed by fellow Cheesehead ex-patriots into sitting at a computer, he found himself building the very first commercial websites to appear on the Internet. As part of the Cyborganic Community experiment, Haig helped create some of the earliest, biggest, and most influential businesses of the Dotcom era. He was also on board for the potent music culture transformations of 1990s San Francisco, including the rise of the ravers, the death of Jerry Garcia, and the Beastie Boys’ historic Tibetan Freedom Concerts.
See the Tibetan Action Institute’s 2024 report, “Digital Disruption: Exploring the Impact of Cyber Attacks on the Tibetan Community in Exile,” which features a video interview and further details on Dan’s work.
Turned off by the unbridled greed and heedless ambition of the nascent Web industry, Dan went to Dharamsala, India, to return to his passion, studying Tibetan Medicine, its history and effectiveness, at the Mentsikhang, or school of traditional Tibetan Medicine. A providential meeting there, in the capital of Tibet-in-exile, led to an explosion of activity that took the Tibetans and their fight for survival online. Haig used the technological skills he learned to help bring widespread global attention to and support for this recently-medieval nations’ plight for the first time.
The story told in Wiring Shambhala is that of a beginning. Dan’s work for Tibet has never stopped. A further year working for the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, endless development and deployment of resources for Tibetans and Tibet support groups, and a critical role in the creation and expansion of the International Tibet Network organization that guides the Tibet movement have kept him busy. For his vision, hard work and effectiveness he was appointed president of the Committee of 100 for Tibet, a group of concerned world citizens that numbered 17 Nobel laureates.
Haig currently lives outside Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife Zoe, their son Tristan, two demented cats, and a recently rescued doggo named Avocado. Their daughter Tashi, a former Rubin Museum staffer, is currently living and working as a middle school teacher in Boston.
You can contact Dan regarding Wiring Shambbhala at dan [@] wiringshambhala.com.