Danny Mekić (1987) is an expert on IT and the internet, and runs a consultancy firm. He also gives lectures, including as a guest lecturer at universities, he regularly appears on discussion and current affairs programmes on TV and on the radio, and he’s a columnist, a writer and a jurist.

He’s taken an interest in technology and computers from an early age. “Technology in its purest form can be an alternative to almost the entire analogue world.” He taught himelf programming. When he was twelve, he took up volunteer work as a project team member at internet service provider Het Net. He built websites and online software. Three years later, his own programming and consultancy firm saw the light of day.

Jurist
In his fifth year, he quit high school in order to focus on his company. A few years later, by means of a colloquium doctum entrance exam, he ended up at the University of Amsterdam, where he started taking courses in jurisprudence. “That has been very constructive. I never realised before how much of a jurist I am. I try to bring everything back to the basics, to black-and-white situations. The world is not a rainbow.”

Fountain
Despite ending up in class again, Mekić is not a fan of educational processes. “I like structuring, but not processes. My mind is a fountain of mental leaps. Studying jurisprudence has taught me to structure my thoughts. At the same time, educational processes discourage you from wondering about things. Wondering is what every question starts with. But when a teacher asks: ‘Are there any questions?’, what they actually mean is: ‘Do you know which answers to fill in on the exam?’.”

Mekić also took courses in communication sciences and psychology, became a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law, was trained as a peer mediator at the Centre for Conflict Management in Haarlem and worked part-time as a paralegal specialised in information law at the law firm SOLV.

He puts his insights into law to use as an entrepreneur. In doing so, he doesn’t shy away from exploring other possibilities than the conventional ones. In his lecture, Mekić will discuss the ways in which he believes new forms of IT will influence the judicial system, and take a close look at the future of the legal profession.

This interview has been published in the programme of the Annual Conference of the Bar Association in the Netherlands, where Danny was invited to give a keynote.