Dramatic changes sweeping through Burma are luring back some of the country's millions-strong diaspora to help rebuild their impoverished homeland, in a reversal of a decades-long brain drain.

Aung Naing Oo had not set foot in the country formerly known as Burma for almost a quarter century since escaping through malaria-infested jungle into Thailand after the army brutally crushed student protests in 1988.

Emboldened by a surprising series of reforms and an invitation by the new government for exiles to return, he was one of a group of academics who recently made the previously unthinkable journey home.