Dear openDemocracy readers and friends,

This is the year of openDemocracy’s tenth birthday. Technically it is this month. But like many a project there is quite a time between conception, going public and learning to walk. openDemocracy started to walk in response to the challenge of 9/11 four months after it went live, when we immediately abandoned the initial idea of fortnightly publication, published daily and became, in effect, a global website.