Nathaniel Tan was born and raised in Malaysia and scraped through a bachelor's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at Harvard. He has been priviliged to spend a little time in East Timor, Freetown and Aceh. Coming home to work for briefly in politics, he was arrested and detained for four days in 2007 under suspicion of possessing and publishing Official Secrets on his blog, www.jelas.info. Nat remains ever thankful for the efforts of his loved ones for getting him out, and mildly amused that anyone could think him to have access to such exciting information. Bangkit.net was an effort to better connect Malaysia's civil society and wider public.