Mehan Jayasuriya

Program Officer, Product Manager, Writer

mehan.j@gmail.com

mehan.info

Portland, OR

Skills

Product & Program

I've managed a portfolio of products totaling over $10M in annual revenue, developed new products and programs from scratch and revamped and relaunched flagship products.

Design & Web

I've taught web design at New York University and my personal web projects have been featured in Wired, The Guardian, The Atlantic and The Verge.

Writing

I've contributed to The Guardian, Pitchfork, Gizmodo, MTV Hive and Stereogum and have been interviewed by Wired and Al Jazeera.

Experience

Mozilla

Senior Program Officer, Mozilla Foundation

2016 - Present


  • Designed, built and managed the Mozilla Technology Fund (MTF), which provides funding and mentorship to open source maintainers building trustworthy AI technologies.
  • Managed the Mozilla Open Source Support (MOSS) program, a fund which provided $2M in funding annually to open source technologists.
  • Designed, launched and managed a $2M wireless innovation challenge in partnership with the National Science Foundation. Served as co-principal investigator on $2.5M NSF grant.
  • Launched and managed the Open Internet Engineering (OIE) fellowship program, which funded network engineers in the Global South.
  • Promoted Mozilla programs at conferences, in press interviews and via strategic partnerships and public events.

General Assembly

Product Manager, Engineering Courses

2014 - 2016


  • Served as global product manager for General Assembly's web and mobile development courses, a $10M+ portfolio of products which were offered in 15 markets around the world.
  • Researched, developed, built and launched JavaScript Development, the company's first intermediate-level product, resulting in ~$2M in additional revenue in 2016.
  • Oversaw the launch of the Android Development Immersive course in partnership with Google.
  • Managed and refreshed Front-End Web Development, the company's most popular part-time course.
  • Established and maintained partnerships with companies including Google, Facebook and GitHub.

New York University

Adjunct Faculty, Department of Computer Science

2015


  • Designed and taught "Introduction to Web Design and Computer Principles," an undergraduate computer science course that taught HTML, CSS, design and image manipulation for the web.

Fractured Atlas

Software Development Fellow

2014


  • Helped build and maintain Fractured Atlas' products and services using Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS and Javascript/jQuery.

GovLab, NYU Wagner

Research Fellow

2013 - 2014


  • Conducted research on how technology can empower citizens and re-shape governance.
  • Helped design the curriculum and served as teaching assistant for Professor Beth Noveck's "Gov 3.0" class, which was simultaneously taught to NYU masters students and online learners around the globe.
  • Helped design and scale the GovLab Academy platform and Gov 3.0 online mentoring and training program.

Tumblr

Outreach and Data Analysis Intern

2012 - 2013


  • Worked part-time in the strategic outreach department, focusing on politics and causes.
  • Analyzed large datasets using HiveQL and R to produce tables, lists and graphs of Tumblr user behavior.
  • Designed official company blogs such as election.tumblr.com.
  • Helped coordinate Tumblr’s coverage of the 2012 Presidential election.
  • Wrote feature stories and performed interviews, both on and off camera, for Tumblr’s editorial department.

Public Knowledge

Director of Outreach and New Media

2010 - 2011


  • Built and led the outreach team at an internationally visible, non-profit consumer advocacy group.
  • Designed and executed online campaigns aimed at increasing public participation in policy proceedings.
  • Curated, organized and produced the "World's Fair Use Day" 2010 and 2011 conferences.
  • Spoke at a number of events including SXSW and authored opinion pieces for various publications including The Guardian.

Public Knowledge

Policy Analyst

2008 - 2010


  • Researched, wrote and spoke about intellectual property, information and technology policy issues.
  • Produced formal filings and comments that were submitted to Federal bureaus (FCC, FTC, NTIA).
  • Contributed to Congressional testimony, online tutorials, research reports and grant proposals.
  • Served as editor and project lead for a research paper on the topic of copyright filtering.
  • Briefed policymakers, industry executives, technologists, creative professionals, journalists and representatives from other non-profits on policy issues.

FierceMarkets

Associate Managing Editor

2006 - 2008


  • Wrote and edited daily publications which covered the IT and wireless industries.

Japan English and Teaching Program (JET)

Assistant Language Teacher

2005 - 2006


  • Designed and taught English lessons to Japanese kindergarten, elementary and middle school students.

Education

New York University

MPS, Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), 2013


University of Chicago

BA (with honors), East Asian Languages and Civilizations, 2005

Mehan Jayasuriya — mehan.info — mehan.j@gmail.com