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The story so far

September 2000 : Two Erasmus students, Nicola Dell'Arciprete and Adriano Farano, arrive at Strasbourg's political studies Institute (IEP) with a revolutionary idea in their baggage: creating the first pan-European media.

January 2001: Along with a 12-nationality group of fellow erasmus exchange students, they create the French association Babel International, which aims to open up a virtual arena for debating and discussing European issues.

1 February, 2001: Online publication of Issue 1 of cafebabel.com in four languages simultaneously: English, French, Italian and Spanish.

June 2001: The erasmus year is over. Many founders commit themselves to creating 'local hubs' of cafebabel.com back in their own cities and towns, in their countries. The diaspora effect.

October 2001: Creation of 6 regional cafebabel.com offices.

February 2002: Launch of the new website and diversification of editorial content, first Europe-wide advertising campaign.

September 2002: Adriano Farano and Frenchmen Alexandre Heully and Simon Loubris decide to build a European central editorial office in Paris. Their objective is to give cafebabel.com a professional structure.

December 2002: By this date, 13 local offices have been established in Prague, Paris, Strasbourg, Rome, Leeds, Granada, which are later joined by Bologna, Warsaw, Istanbul, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels and Sofia.

January 2003: Creation of the European central editorial office in Paris, weekly publication.

September 2003: Operations professionalised at central editorial office in Paris, 17 regional local offices in 11 countries, launch of the 'Caffeine' column.

December 2003: Launch of the German linguistic edition of the magazine: cafebabel.com now published in 5 language versions

2004: Consolidation of European central editorial office in Paris with a team of seven people working full-time. Partnership agreed with French weekly 'Courrier International'. Events organised with numerous personalities in Europe (Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Michel Barnier, Dominique Strauss-Kahn etc).

May 2004: Launch of the Catalan version of website: cafebabel.com published in six language versions

February to November 2004: First of series of debates across Europe launched: the 'Coffee Stormings'. Every month, cafebabel.com takes to the road.

June 2004: In recognition of its role in the media world, cafebabel.com is awarded the 'European Initiative Prize 2004' along with French daily La Croix and Radio France Culture, presented by the European Press Club, the Maison de l’Europe and the European Parliament.

November 2004: cafebabel.com’s Biggest conference to date organised in Brussels: 'Is European federalism dead?', gathering European political personalities such as the late Bronislaw Geremek and Marco Pannella.

March 2005: With the creation of two new teams in Poland and one in Hungary, cafebabel.com consists of 20 local offices in 12 European countries.

April 2005: Launch of remodelled website, along with two new sections: Brunch with… a weekly informal tête-à-tête with the European personalities of tomorrow, and Tower of Babel, a weekly humorous look at how expressions travel from one language to another.

July 2005: The expansion continues in the east, with new offices in Vilnius, Lithuania and Sofia, Bulgaria.

August 2005: cafebabel.com holds its 1st 'Babel Ackademy' in the Paris region. 25 members attend the summer workshop

November 2005: cafebabel.com breaks the 100, 000 visitors per month mark

February 2006: On the occasion of cafebabel.com’s 5th birthday, cafebabel.com becomes available in Polish, the seventh linguistic version of cafebabel.com.

August 2006: The 'cities' column is launched: every month a local team hosts and guides five babel journalists for a unique features dossier.

March 2007: Babelblogs, the first multilingual blogs, are launched.

July 2007: Along the same line, babelforums are launched: the community of babelians goes online.

January 2008: Catalan language version is sadly closed down after a lack of funds. European gastronomy 'Yum Nyam' column is launched

February 2008: 'Babel Reporter' is launched, a temporary project aiming at recruiting babelian writers to go on a mission to eastern Europe, and then selling these articles to the press

May 2008: A brand new version of the entire website goes live. All the contents – magazine, blogs, forums – are organised according to a common tag system. Registered readers are offered a multilingual version of cafebabel.com according to their linguistic preferences

2010: A new general director, secretary and treasurer: former PR chief and co-founder Alexandre Heully takes control of the organisation, co-founder Simon Loubris becomes secretary

April 2010: cafebabel.com develops the website so that all citizen and editorial contributions are centralised directly from the 'babelprofile'

September 2010-September 2011: A first for cafebabel.com: we run two projects simultaneously and successfully, built on the success of the 'Europe on the ground' concept, 'Green Europe on the ground', and a brand new baby called 'Orient Express Reporter', which stretches our citizen journalism outreach to the Balkans and Turkey and sees new blogs and local teams establishing as volunteers in Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb and Skopje amongst others

April 2011: cafebabel.com celebrates its tenth birthday with six days of conferences and workshops in Strasbourg with other actors in the European media scene

2011-2012: cafebabel.com scores two new projects for another happy year of citizen collaboration and journalism. Keep your eyes peeled for 'Orient Express Reporter part two' and 'multiculturalism' on the ground!