Wojciech Gryc, 21, from Thornhill, Ont., one of Canada's 2008 Rhodes scholars, is likely a one-man Canadian mythology in the making.
A Polish-born immigrant who arrived in Canada with his family when he was five years old, he now walks in the footsteps of Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan and a pantheon of Canadians who have taken their skills, humanitarianism and commitment to human rights to the outside world.
While he was still in high school, in the wake of the Iraq invasion, he founded a global website and online magazine for young people dealing with human rights.
He immersed himself in mathematics, international development and the lofty theories of social networking through computer technology at the University of Toronto and its avante-garde Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) — taking a four-year undergraduate degree in three.
Wojciech Gryc
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The institute explores how media and media technologies shape and are shaped by human activities, using principles established by U of T economist Innis in the 1940s and communications theorist McLuhan in the 1950s and 1960s.
He's spent summers in the central African country of Chad and the slums of Nairobi teaching young adults to use accessible software to produce community newspapers.
He's spent the past few months as an intern in IBM's upstate New York research laboratory, studying the application of mathematical theories to record and track people's social networks to enable with the goal of enabling them to collaborate on low-cost projects. On his Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, he intends to pursue a master's degree in mathematical modelling and scientific computing.
He is the face to the world of a new kind of young Canadian.
His academic mentor, Professor Leslie Chan of KDMI, calls him "an inspiration to us all. He wants to make a difference in people's lives. He has combined his theoretical and mathematical knowledge with practical social outcomes. His accomplishments are outstanding."
