Hari Dahal
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Hari Dahal is a Bhutanese-American community organizer, software developer, and founder of Connecting Cleveland Community, Inc. He co-founded the BRAVE Project during the COVID-19 pandemic to serve Greater Cleveland immigrant families, and was hired by Microsoft for his technical skills. He resettled in the US in 2013.
Background
Hari Dahal is a Bhutanese American who came to the United States with his family in 2013 through the Third-Country Resettlement Program, settling in Cleveland[1], Ohio.
Connecting Cleveland
In 2014, while attending Lincoln-West High School in Cleveland, Dahal helped launch Connecting Cleveland, a bilingual newspaper (English and Nepali) serving Nepali-speaking Bhutanese families in the Cleveland area.[2] The paper published for over a year and laid the groundwork for his later community organizing work.
He later registered the initiative as Connecting Cleveland Community, Inc., a nonprofit organization.
The BRAVE Project
In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dahal and six other young Nepali refugees launched the BRAVE Project (Bhutanese Response Assistance Volunteer Effort). The initiative served Greater Cleveland immigrant families — many of whom worked frontline jobs in the service industry and lived in congregate housing where the virus was spreading rapidly.
As lead developer, Dahal coded the BRAVE app to be multi-functional and HIPAA-compliant, connecting families with COVID testing, vaccination information, and social services in multiple languages.
Technology Career
Dahal's technical skills led to his recruitment by Microsoft, where he works as a software developer. He has mentored Bhutanese-American youth who went on to create Nebham LLC, building technological solutions and apps for nonprofits and businesses in the diaspora.
Significance
Hari Dahal represents the emerging generation of Bhutanese Americans — young people who arrived as refugees, grew up in American schools, and are now using technology and entrepreneurship to serve both their diaspora community and the broader public. His journey from a high school newspaper to Microsoft developer to community tech innovator demonstrates the rapid upward mobility possible in the Bhutanese American community.
References
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