Wikimedia Foundation Annual Report 2009-10/Imagine a world. . .

The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, shines above Bear Lake, Alaska

Imagine a world . . .

Somewhere on the planet, three times every second, a volunteer makes a new edit in one of 270 languages to the largest free encyclopedia the world has ever seen.

Just ten years ago, however, this wildly improbable idea was just that – an idea that almost no one thought would ever become a reality. Well, it did, and now more than 400 million people turn to Wikipedia every month. Welcome to our world, where the wildly improbable can and does come true.

Spuren Im Sand.

in which every single person on the planet. . .

Real people – some 100,000 every month – write and edit Wikipedia. It continues to evolve and expand, thanks to this deeply committed global community of volunteers.

No other living resource exists, or has ever existed, to serve everybody everywhere the way Wikipedia does. To make it truly accessible, we are helping launch versions in as many local languages as possible.

One Laptop Per Child Program in Nepal.

is given free access. . .

Envision a future where every person on earth, rich or poor, has access to all the knowledge that currently resides in our greatest museums, libraries, and archives. Wikipedia lights a bright path to that future, where all children will have the opportunity to become educated and better able to improve their own lives.

Stockholm city library interior.

to the sum of all human knowledge.

Wikimedia’s vision is rooted in a deep reverence for the world’s great repositories of knowledge – libraries and museums.

Almost every week, another major institution somewhere on the planet joins the movement to make digital versions of its treasures available to all. These partnerships brighten our common future, but more work remains.

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