Darko Brkan is founding president of Zašto ne (Why Not), a Sarajevo-based nongovernmental organization that promotes civic activism, government accountability, and the use of digital media and new technologies in deepening democracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is one of BiH’s leading organizations in these fields. In addition, he is a founding member of Dosta! (Enough!), one of Bosnia’s most prominent citizens’ movements for social justice and government accountability. Darko Brkan began his career in civic activism more than ten years ago as a coordinator of the Campaign for Conscientious Objection to Military Service in BiH.

He graduated from the Faculty of Electric Engineering in Sarajevo, majoring in Information Technology with the thesis “Use of Information Technologies in Election Processes”. He is an MBA candidate at the School of Economics and Business in Sarajevo majoring in Strategic Information Management. Darko did a fellowship as a Reagan Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, where he was exploring how information technologies, online tools, and new media can be used to promote democracy and how Open Government Data could be used in the Balkans region.

He has won several awards in the field of innovation and new technology, including the 2011 US Alumni Innovation Award and first place in Innovative Projects Ideas at the Power of One Conference, Cyprus. Apart from that, he is a board member of the US Alumni Association in BiH, a member of the political council of ACIPS, and a board member of “Ekipa”, a foundation promoting independent, socially-engaged culture. He is also a 2008 Alumni of the Council of Europe’s Academy of Political Excellence, a 2010 Alumni of the Fletcher Summer Institute for the Advanced Study of Nonviolent Conflict, and a 2009 Alumni of the United States Government International Visitors Leadership Program.