The first time I'd ever heard of Global Voices was via a little blog/podcast called Caribbean Free Radio, which my friend Georgia – now GV's managing director – started. At the time, David Sasaki, known to us all as “Oso”, was GV's Regional Editor for Latin America and he was hungry for Caribbean content. In 2006, not many people were blogging from our region, and certainly not podcasting, so Caribbean Free Radio caught his eye. After linking to Georgia's posts a few times, he actually got in touch and asked her if she'd be interested in covering the Caribbean region for Global Voices. (If my memory about any of this is blurred, Georgia will set the record straight).

Long story short, GAP started writing and editing for Global Voices – but being the visionary that she is and ever eager to see her friends test their boundaries, she encouraged me to start a blog of my own. Her rationale was that blogging had the ability to hone your writing skills in new ways. You had to be concise, clever, and to-the-point – after all, you were competing with the whole world to attract a few minutes of people's online time.

Her sales pitch worked (no surprise to anyone who knows her) and I started my blog, which of course made me familiar with WordPress – so when the GV Summit in India came up and Georgia needed someone to hold down the GV Caribbean fort while she was away, I stepped up. And then I volunteered to be an author. When GAP became part of the core team, GV needed someone to fill the role of Caribbean Regional Editor, and the rest is history.

Being part of GV has been an extremely fulfilling experience for me – I've met amazing people from all over the world whom I consider friends (even though some of them I've only met virtually), and I'm part of a dynamic group of people that are helping the change how meaningful conversations happen. Happy 10th anniversary, Global Voices!