His goals while at UM were to create the template to take online the holdings of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) and, in the process, help safeguard the story of the Tibetan people in exile.

“I always wanted to do something that involves technical (skills) as well as academics,“ said Sonam, whose project combines his newly acquired computer skills with in-depth knowledge of Tibetan culture and Buddhist philosophy.

Sonam grew up Dharamsala, a small Indian town between the northern Pakistan and Chinese border.  His parents had fled to Indian during the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959. They later moved to Nepal where Sonam was born.

He attended the Tibetan Children’s Village School, whose goal is to preserve and promote Tibetan Culture.

With his Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Master’s degrees in English Literature, and a Computer Science certificate, from Madras Christian College in Chennai, India, he obtained an assistant’s position at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. There, Sonam created the first LTWA website.

On a visit to UM to promote Buddhist teachings, LTWA Director Geshe Lhakdor asked School of Communication professors how they might improve the site.

In the winter of 2005, under the Center of Modern Media (CAMM) -the former version of the KCIM- School of Communication Assistant Professor Kim Grinfeder traveled to Dharamsala.

“It took three days, a plane to New Delhi, an overlay in New Delhi, an overnight train, and a four-hour cab ride across the Himalayas,” Grinfeder said.

Grinfeder worked with Sonam on the website’s design. It was during Grinfeder’s visit that Sonam began to focus on the audio-visual aspect of the library and was later officially named webmaster.

“Professor Kim Grinfeder also gave valuable insight into making the technical improvements and greatly encouraged the importance of having a proper website and the need to go online more effectively,” Sonam said.

In early 2006, Associate Professors Sanjeev Chatterjee and Lelen Bourgoignie-Robert, as well as other colleagues, visited Dharamsala to interview his holiness the Dalai Lama for the non-verbal film “One Water.” This project further fortify the ties between the library and the school.

Sonam’s curiosity had not peaked. He started surveying all the possible technical needs and obstacles to building a more interactive and multi-media website by classifying them as long-term and short-term. When the Knight Center was founded earlier this year, it was the previous relationship that brought Sonam to Miami.

“One goal was to expose him to the technology and resources available at the School of Communication,” Grinfeder said.

While at UM, Sonam took CVJ309 Introduction to Photojournalism, CVJ596 Social Networking, and CVJ341 Web Production.

With Sonam’s new tools, he laid down the framework for the new library website. Commissioned by his famous boss, the Dalai Lama, the online library’s purpose is to educate and preserve the spiritual and social aspects of Tibetan culture through audio and visual presentations.

The site will feature books available in the library, Buddhist texts and manuscripts, oral recordings from the 1950s and 1960s, and online classes for those who cannot travel to Dharamsala to practice Buddhism.

Future projects include bridging Tibetan-Buddhist teachings and science. With monks having access to science and the Internet, the site is anticipated to serve as a forum for the scientific community.

“The study of science and Buddhism is to keep discovering,” Sonam said.

But like many undertakings of this magnitude, there are many obstacles the project still has to overcome. To date, Sonam explains, there is no proper font that accurately displays characters from Tibetan manuscripts and Buddhist teachings. Other challenges include indexing these manuscripts, since most have paragraph-long titles.