About Nyk Cowham

This is how Nyk is a Changemaker:
I am an internet technology strategist and software architect with Forum One Communications. I work for organizations that are making a significant impact on important social issues, including my work with Ashoka Changemakers. I have worked on web initiatives for: supporting HIV/AIDS vaccine research and economics (http://www.iaen.org/), reproductive health rights (http://www.planetwire.org/), human rights & displaced persons (http://www.refugeesinternational.org), disease control (http://www.dcp2.org/), conservation (http://www.awf.org/), education (http://pbskids.org/backyardjungle/), the labor movement (AFL-CIO), &c.

The place for which Nyk feels a fondness or connection:
I spent most of my summer family vacations in Cornwall in England. I love the connection with Arthurian legend, particularly in such places as Tintagel. I love seeking out places that have legends and myths attached to them and spent many summers tracking down some obscure place mentioned in old British myths. My favorite of all time was in North Wales in a town called Beddgelert. Near this town is a remote hill called Dinas Emrys, that has the foundations of Vortigern's Tower, mentioned in the early stories of the origins of Merlin. After a day of interviewing local people for the location of this site we finally found one old lady who knew where it was. We found the site and gained permission from the lady who owned the land to explore it. I was delighted to find the foundation stones of that legendary tower still quite visible!

The change Nyk passionately wants to happen:
True democracy in all public domains including in the workplace. Representative democracy is a compromise at best based on old world constraints of communication capabilities. In the vastly networked world in which we live today, it seems an imperative that society should be governed from the bottom up in a highly participatory manner. We have the communication technology to support such an old yet radical idea, we simply need the political will and the spirit to challenge the entrenched financial interests that benefit from the inadequate political system that we have inherited. In a world where trade and commerce is a fundamental human interaction we must strive to ensure that all such trade is fair and equitable.