My name is Yann. I’m an engineer and an instructor at Polytechnique Montréal. I grew up in Haiti and came to Canada in 2010, after the earthquake on January 12th. My family is a mix of both worlds: Haitian roots, and a grandmother from Rimouski who left Quebec to live in Haiti with my grandfather.
Dan is a software engineer, a Concordia graduate. His parents came from Vietnam by boat. He met his wife Serim in Malaysia. Together, they’re raising their two children, San and Ari, in Montreal.
We met a few years ago at Collège Marie de France, our old school, where we’d come back to speak to current students about our careers. In March, we met up for coffee.
That evening, we told each other the same story in different words.
Me: a trip to Florence where my mother started opening up. Her childhood in Haiti. Her sacrifices. Stories I’d never heard, that could have disappeared without that trip.
Dan: seven chapters written by hand for his children, still too young to remember. And then the feeling of losing the thread in his own pages.
At some point, one of us said it out loud.
We should build this.
That’s why we created LifeMemory. You talk, we help you turn it into a book.
Yann and Dan, co-founders of LifeMemory
