I was born in Bogota (Colombia) in 1960, the third of four children.
From a very young age I was inclined by social issues perhaps because of
my father's background (a criminologist and research professor).
However, instead of becoming a lawyer I decided to study physics,
mathematics and systems engineering. I got my degrees from Universidad
de los Andes in 1984. But as happens in Carmina Burana's wheel of
fortune I ended up working for the ministry of justice helping in
defining a national strategy for using IT in order to improve the
judicial processes in the courts.
Being directly affected by the violence generated by the guerrilla
groups, in 1986 I went to the USA. There, I got an MSc in Computer
Science ("Knowledge Database Systems") at the University of
Maryland in College Park. In 1988 I went back to Colombia and joined the
Instituto SER de Investigacion, a socially oriented leading research
institute. There, I was in charge of the administration of the justice
research programme. A programme aimed at proposing mechanisms to improve
the effectiveness of the justice system.
In 1992 I went to England with my wife, Sylvia, to pursue a doctoral
programme. I got my PhD from the University of Humberside in 1995 with a
thesis entitled "A Framework for the design of a social accounting
system.". We went back to Colombia in 1996 where my son, Alfonsito,
was born. From 1996 to 2000 I worked as an Associate Professor in the
Department of Industrial Engineering at the Universidad de los Andes. At
the same time, I have the opportunity to apply cybernetics concepts and
tools in several public institutions. The more important were the
National Accounting Office and the National Prosecution Office.
Currently I am a research assistant at the University of Lincoln in
England. |
