Even during my early days as a for-profit entrepreneur in the 1990s, I had a sense that I did not just want to be a business leader, but a change maker as well. I have always been active in the letters page of various newspapers, having two ‘featured letters’ and one ‘letter of the week’ on technology topics.
Between 2002 and 2005 I was the Communications and Database Officer for the Wales in Europe campaign, programming the first ever Virtual War Room to raise alerts to volunteer letter writers about news or correspondence in local papers to respond to. Since 2005 I have been a columnist for Trinity Mirror Plc, particularly in Wales-based media.
I regularly engage with people in local, business and academic communities, through frequently speaking on technology topics at learned venues in Wales, including Pontypridd, Cardiff and Wrexham. My speaking highlight is presenting to a conference at Strathclyde University in 2005, where I became one of the founding fathers of the post-cognitive psychology movement, featuring in a seminal edited work called ‘The Mind, the Body and the World: Psychology after Cognitivism?’, and having subsequent publications in learned journals cited in PhD, Masters and other degree theses, and by senior academics.
I have served in periods 2003 up to the present as a councillor on local councils in the South Wales Valleys, focusing on technology and equality policy, like increasing access information and the Internet. This including the implementation of my e-government strategy leading to the Llantwit Fardre community council’s first web presence and the adoption of a commitment to providing community Wi-Fi in Pontypridd Town Council buildings.
I have also served as a trustee of a local charity and am currently a school governor of a primary school, treasurer of a local co-operative movement branch and town councillor for Treforest. I was class president on several university courses and on the student council at some, succeeding in the adoption of printing management, more module choice, and the provision of a postgraduate room.