As many of you know have already figured out from my poor grammar and spelling, my native language is Spanish since I am from the Dominican Republic.

Furthermore, almost all of my practical work and initiatives are in Spanish and target a Spanish-speaking audience (www.educar.org, www.bibliotecasvirtuales.com, www.civila.com, www.ciudadesvirtuales.com, etc.)

Until 2004, almost all of my research and papers were in Spanish, as I was residing in the Dominican Republic and my work as a consultant was related to Latin American initiatives.

Then I had the "unfortunate privilege" to have been selected as a fellow at the Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship Program at Stanford University (USA) and thus began my via crucis with language.

There I was confronted by the huge limitation that since all of my previous work was in Spanish, I could not use my previous models and papers for my current work or to support discussions with my colleagues or as part of my new developments at the fellowship.

At some point, I started a translation of the 100-page powerpoint presentation that summarizes my methodology and finding on ICT4Dev Strategy formulation. To this day - 2 years later -, I have a half English-half Spanish presentation.

But as I pressed on with my work, I did write a summary version of the process and created a reusable template and handbook for guided formulation of Strategies for Social Impact with Technology (or ICT4Dev Strategies as they are commonly known). This document is in English. So is all my recent research on collaborative development, social impact of technology, open content and collaborative competitiveness. But most of the people and institutions I work with and that come looking for info at my websites or are engaged in my on-line communities are Spanish-speaking.

After that, I came to the English-speaking Caribbean as an Information Society consultant for United Nations and received a scholarship for an e-governance program. More work in English...

This website you are reading is an effort to enable a collaborative space for further developments on Information and Knowledge Society and to organize and share our recent work around such issues.

But as it began to take shape, I was troubled by the fact that currently the updated theoretical framework and conceptual foundation for my work is in English, but my practical work is in Spanish.

Ironically, the motivation that triggered the creation of my virtual communities and on-line initiatives 10 years ago was the lack of quality content on-line about Latin America and in Spanish.

You are probably thinking: why are you then writing this note in English and not in Spanish? Because of the above mentioned periplus, most of my direct interaction around these issues is with English-speaking colleagues and my papers are discussed by English-speaking audiences.

This situation makes me feel like a prisoner chained by limitations in both worlds. I'm pretty sure this must be a common situation for lots of people, in particular for the Diaspora in countries with languages other than their own.