Ortega earned a bachelor's in Bilingual Education at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, then worked in Chicago as a cultural ambassador and later as a curriculum designer and bilingual trainer. In Canada, he founded iLanguage Kids, which grew to about ten instructors teaching languages including Italian, French, Mandarin, Japanese and Portuguese.
He came to OISE in 2013 for a master's in Language and Literacy Education, with a thesis on bilingual literacy among Spanish-English families at a Toronto bookstore, then completed a PhD in the same program specializing in Comparative and International Education in 2021 — mentored throughout by professors Enrica Piccardo and Kathy Bickmore.
His book, Pluriversal Applied Linguistics: Implications for Language Teaching and Research from the Global South, launched Dec. 8, 2025. Ortega has since lectured at Western University, the University of Ottawa and Queen's University Belfast, taught peacebuilding at OISE, and founded Liminal Research Services and the Artem Research Collective.
Reported from How a bilingual dictionary opened the world of language to U of T alum Yecid Ortega, by Sharmeen Somani (U of T Alumni News, March 17, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-alum-yecid-ortega-how-a-bilingual-dictionary-opened-a-world-of-language