Page 26 - All About History - Issue 12-14

Education

Top 5 facts

JIMMY WALES

FOUNDER OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST
FREE ONLINE ENCYCLOPAEDIA,

AMERICAN, 1966-

JIMMY WALES
American, 1966-
As a child he had strong
Brief interest in facts and
knowledge and would
Bio often be seen with
his head buried in an
encyclopaedia. After attending
university he became an internet
entrepreneur and while his
first project failed, his online
encyclopaedia site, Wikipedia,
proved to be a phenomenon
and is now used by hundreds
of millions of people around the
world to gain knowledge.

01 GREAT KNOWLEDGE-GIVER

Since Wikipedia went live in 2001, Wales’
creation has become an internet sensation and
is the fifth most-visited website on the entire
internet. The online encyclopaedia, edited by
staff and the general public, has over 17 million
He stood up
He’s a
articles, over 260 different language versions and 04 millionaire, 05 to China
to date there have been over 1 billion edits to it. not a billionaire In 2006, Wales allegedly
Despite founding the fifth most refused a request from
Internet addict He could have become popular website in the world, Chinese authorities to censor
02 He was interested in the 03 a doctor Wales has not been made politically sensitive material,
internet from its early years and used to Wales received a bachelor’s degree in immensely rich off Wikipedia, despite the fact that other
write computer code in his spare time. finance from Auburn University in 1986 as it’s not a commercial internet giants such as
Wales played online multiplayer games, and entered the PhD finance programme venture. The New York Times Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft
which he said gave him the idea of the at the same university. He left with a has estimated his net worth at had already taken such
power of computer networks to enable master’s degree before entering the PhD $1 million (£600,000), while in action. He has stated that
large-scale collaborative projects and in programme at another university but did 2006 Time magazine named he would rather there was
1995 set up the search engine Bomis, his not write his doctorate dissertation, as he him as one of the 100 most no Wikipedia in China than a
first online venture. said it bored him. influential people in the world. censored version of it.
© Alamy
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