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This month, Observatory IFE is celebrating its tenth anniversary. It seems like yesterday, that day when everyone was on edge because we were about to launch our websites in Spanish and English. It was a matter of “pressing a button,” but for those of us who were part of the Observatory at that time, what we were about to do was no small thing; it meant taking a big step: launching our content into the world. Although we were aware of the responsibility that this implied, the truth is that I don’t think any of us who were in that room imagined the great impact that the step we took in September 2014 would have.
We started with a tiny team, but we were very committed to our mission: to bring open educational resources to every corner of the world, mainly to Spanish-speaking people with little or no access to these types of resources. In our first “headquarters” (which was actually a small office), the first Edu Trends reports were born, which were, at the time, the main publication that practically all of us were devoted to. At that time, I was making the infographics and some designs for those first reports.
Shortly afterward, other types of publications were born, which are now an essential part of the Observatory:
- Our weekly newsletter was initially prepared and sent by our current director of the Observatory, Esteban Venegas. Shortly after, Esteban passed the baton to me, and since then, I personally send you this newsletter every Tuesday. Our Weekly Report has been named “The main Latin American newsletter on education” (Espacios de Educación Superior, 2023).
- One of our flagship publications par excellence is the Edu bits articles, those “Learnings that inspire,” written by teachers from all over the world who share their experiences and pedagogical practices with the educational community. The Edu bits would not be what they are today if it were not for their coordinator and editor, Rubí Román, who, by the way, is one of the Observatory’s veterans.
- The Edu News section arose from the need to create news and opinion articles on the state of the art of educational innovation in Spanish since we realized that very little dissemination of these topics is done in our language. At the time, there were only three writers: Christian Guijosa, Sofía García-Bullé, and me. Today, the team has grown a little, and this section is nourished thanks to the work of our writing staff: Paulette Delgado, Melissa Guerra, Nohemí Vilchis, Andrea Cristina Álvarez, Mariana Sofía Jiménez, Rubí Román, and our faithful collaborator, Andrés García Barrios.
- A few years later, we ventured into creating multimedia content, starting with short video clips about the latest educational trends, and then we began to conduct interviews with experts in the field of education. After these first steps, our famous IFE Observatory Webinars were born, also led by our dear Rubí Román. Shortly after, Dialogos was born, which we do together with the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP), and Tec de Monterrey. These conversations, which we know are also very popular, are coordinated by our colleague Christian Guijosa.
- Of course, we couldn’t resist the desire to make a podcast. That’s how the EduTrends Podcast was born. In it, our host, José “Pepe” Escamilla (who was the director of the Observatory in its early days), talks with leading figures at the intersection of education, innovation, and technology.
- Last but not least, our social networks are essential for us to maintain a conversation with you, our readers. Behind the scenes is Sofía García-Bullé, who started with us as a staff writer for Edu News and is now the distribution leader for all our content.
I want to reiterate (even if it sounds like a cliché) that these ten years would not have been possible without you, not only for the support you give us every day when you read us and when you share our publications with colleagues or friends, when you open the newsletter every week, when you connect to watch our Webinars and Dialogues, and when you listen to our podcast. We are still here a decade later because you, reader, are our driving force, inspiration, and motivation. to keep doing what we do.
Thank you for your support over these ten years!
I end this message by thanking all the people who have been part of the Observatory in this first era, 2014-2024:
José Escamilla
Bryan Calleja
Éder Villalba
Vladimir Burgos
Ana Maria Zermeño Padilla
Eliud Quintero
Alejandro Murillo
Javier Estrada
Zayra Madrigal
Katiuska Fernández
Josemaría Elizondo
Gabriela Ábrego
Ignacio González
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
