Jason Johnson and Jimmy Wales
If you’ve ever done a search on the web for just about anything, chances are one of the results right up near the top of the page was for a subject page within Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the world’s first, largest, online, open-source encyclopedia truly created by the people, for the people, in that the entries are articles which have been written collaboratively by volunteers from all over the world. What’s more, just about all of the articles can be updated, changed and edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Today Wikipedia is “the” encyclopedia on the internet, and one of the ten (sixth according to Alexa ranks) most visited web sites in the world.
The effects of Wikipedia are profound and fundamentally changing the way knowledge is created and distributed throughout the world today. So where did it all start? With Jimmy Wales.
Jimmy Wales is the founder of Wikipedia, ranked 12th by Forbes Magazine in their first annual “Web Celeb 25” List, and named one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People”. Today we had the satisfaction of attending his speaking engagement about “Democracy and the Internet.”
He shared stories about how developing and closed countries are slowly, cautiously becoming more and more democratized (even if only online), and how Wikipedia and the internet as a whole are beginning to ever so slightly “flatten” the world, open markets and promote cultural understanding. Another interesting theme Mr. Wales presented during the opening of his speech, using various analogies, was how over time many things have increased in complexity, yet accessibility has broadened, while our tools and maybe minds have too. It was a fascinating presentation and I had the privilege of meeting him after the talk.
Tags: presentations, web