Rita Nguyen is creating a social media network there in a language she doesn’t speak

When civilian government replaced military rule in Republic of the Union of Myanmar, it ended censorship that had, among other restrictions, banned news websites sites and social networking such as the video sharing site YouTube.

Twitter and Facebook were subject to blocking on occasion and in 2007, the ruling junta blocked Internet connectivity completely during that country’s street protests.

When 50 years of censorship and Myanmar’s economic isolation came to an end, the country attracted entrepreneurs eager to tap into a consumer population that lagged far behind in access to many services, including communications.

Vancouver’s Rita Nguyen, cofounder of SQUAR, Myanmar’s first social media network that launched earlier this year, was among them.