About Us

Loplao (Easy Tibetan) was estab­lished to pro­mote and advance Tibetan lan­guage and cul­ture world­wide. It was foun­ded in 2019 by Ten­zin Cho­ep­h­el and Dr Rachael Grif­fiths, who were con­cerned by the lack of resources avail­able to Tibetan lan­guage learners; espe­cially mem­bers of the Tibetan dia­spora, for whom this lan­guage provides a cru­cial link to their cul­tur­al heritage.

Mov­ing bey­ond tra­di­tion­al tools like text­books, Loplao hopes to expand oppor­tun­it­ies to learn Tibetan through cre­at­ing var­ied, rich, and enga­ging resources. We aim to offer a vari­ety of learn­ing exper­i­ences like bite-size social media con­tent, one-to-one online les­sons with nat­ive speak­ers, You­Tube videos, and blog posts. These addi­tion­al formats offer flex­ib­il­ity, help keep learners engaged, and improve con­ver­sa­tion, read­ing, and listen­ing comprehension.

Designed to sup­port learners of all levels and back­grounds, includ­ing mem­bers of the dia­spora, we believe our online pro­vi­sion provides the tools required for learn­ing and sus­tain­ing engage­ment with Tibetan.

Our Team

Tenzin Choephel

Co-Founder, CEO

A nat­ive Tibetan, Ten­zin has taught Tibetan in a range of edu­ca­tion­al set­tings in India and the UK, includ­ing Thosam­ling Nun­nery, Dharam­sala and the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford.

Inspired by his own exper­i­ence of teach­ing, he developed and pub­lished the Tibetan lan­guage text­book The Manu­al of Authen­t­ic Tibetan in 2018 and LopLao in 2019.

Dr Rachael Griffiths

Co-Founder

Rachael has been study­ing Tibetan since 2007; first at the School of Ori­ent­al and Afric­an Stud­ies (SOAS) and later at the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford.

While study­ing her Mas­ters, she was sur­prised by the lim­ited tools avail­able to aid lan­guage acquis­i­tion and is excited to be involved with a pro­ject which aims to change this.

Michael Elison

Digit­al Developer

Michael is a pro­fes­sion­al Java Developer, as well as Full Stack Developer with exper­i­ence in HTML, CSS, JavaS­cript, Mon­goDB, SQL.

He also has a great interest in Tibetan Lan­guage and Cul­ture. In 2019, he gradu­ated from the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford as a Mas­ter of Philo­sophy in Tibetan and Him­alay­an Stud­ies. For his Master’s thes­is, Michael con­duc­ted research on the prac­tice of Dream Yoga in Bon in com­par­is­on with Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

Board of Trustees

Yangten Rinpoche

Trust­ee

Yangten Tulku Rinpoche Lob­sang Ten­pai Gyalt­sen com­pleted his tra­di­tion­al Tibetan mon­ast­ic stud­ies at Sera mon­as­tery in India where he attained the degree of Geshe Lham­rampa in 2006. After com­plet­ing his Tan­tric stud­ies at Gyuto mon­as­tery in 2008, His Holi­ness the Dalai Lama per­son­ally summoned him to work in his private office. Yangten Rinpoche is presently seni­or sec­ret­ary with­in the Tibetan Sec­tion and head of the pro­ject respons­ible for com­pil­ing the writ­ings and teach­ings of His Holi­ness. He recently authored an extremely well-received book, “ Clas­si­fic­a­tions of Reli­gion: The Views of the Ancient and Modern”.

Charles Hayes

Chair

Charles Hayes has a Mas­ters degree in engin­eer­ing sci­ence from Oxford Uni­ver­sity. He worked at IBM doing uni­ver­sity vaca­tions and shell Inter­na­tion­al upon leav­ing uni­ver­sity in 1985. 

He sub­sequently star­ted a lengthy 30 year career in bank­ing where he is spe­cial­ised in invest­ment advice and risk man­age­ment. Cur­rently, he’s Giv­ing advice to nation­al reg­u­lat­ors respons­ible for fin­an­cial pro­pri­ety as well as invest­ing money for a medi­um-sized fund. He is a keen sports­man and enjoys keep­ing fit and skiing.

Emina Besirevic Hayes

Treas­urer

Emina Besirevic Hayes was born in former Yugoslavia in the late 60s, and has lived in the United King­dom for the last 30 years. Ms Hayes has an under­gradu­ate degree in Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, a post­gradu­ate degree in Psy­chi­atry, a Dip­loma in Spir­itu­al Coun­selling and she is a mem­ber of Brit­ish Hyp­no­ther­apy Association. 

Ms Hayes is also a Mahay­ana Dharma Prac­ti­tion­er and a pas­sion­ate advoc­ate and act­iv­ist for the pre­ser­va­tion and cul­tiv­a­tion of Buddhist Tibetan tra­di­tion. As an explorer and lov­er of nat­ur­al sci­ences, she will keep study­ing, con­tem­plat­ing and reflect­ing on the rel­at­ive and ulti­mate nature of the mind in her pur­suit for wis­dom knowledge.

Jordan Quill

Sec­ret­ary

Jordan Quill is cur­rently study­ing for an MPhil in Tibetan and Him­alay­an stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford. He has a BA degree in the His­tory of Art from the Cour­tauld Insti­tute, Uni­ver­sity of Lon­don, where he spe­cial­ised in the archi­tec­ture, manu­script paint­ing and tex­tiles of Timur­id and Uzbek Cent­ral Asia and Mughal India. He has worked with antique Asi­an tex­tiles in Lon­don since he gradu­ated in 2017, spe­cial­ising in Indi­an tex­tiles since 2019. 

He has also trav­elled to Nepal and North­ern India a num­ber of times, and has strong friend­ships with Tamang and Tibetan artis­ans in both Kath­mandu and McLeodganj, Dharam­sala. Aside from Tibetan, Jordan has stud­ied the Per­sian, Rus­si­an and Uzbek  lan­guages, and hopes to begin study­ing Hindi and Per­sian again after com­plet­ing his master’s degree. He enjoys trav­el­ling, vis­it­ing museums and see­ing antique Indi­an textiles.