FutureChallenges goes Spanish!

Since its launch in 2010, FutureChallenges has published all Local Views in English. In the beginning, the editorial team published any posts in which the author’s intent was clear.

When futurechallenges.org was relaunched in June this year, we changed the editorial process as well to include an editor who has English as his native language. Some users saw this as an immoderate interference in bloggers’ work, but others welcomed it as a helpful change. As a global platform, futurechallenges must confront the language issue head-on. Should we incorporate more contributions by lowering our English standard, or should we maintain a high standard of English while slowing the editorial process and raising hurdles for contributors?

Fortunately there is a third way. The FutureChallenges team has decided to start a pilot project with our regional group in Central and South America. From now on, the bloggers in this regional group can publish blogposts in Spanish or in English. If they choose to write in Spanish, we ask only that they add a short abstract in English.

We are very excited to see how this pilot project will develop. Will the bloggers choose to write in Spanish? Will more people from Central and South America read blogposts on futurechallenges.org because the language barrier has been torn down? If we decide to move on, which languages other than English and Spanish could be used on futurechallenges.org?