Meeting Wiki people – Jimmy Wales and Sue Gardner!

August 19, 2013

I met Jimmy Wales (Founder of Wikipedia) and Sue Gardner (Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation) at Wikimania 2013 in HongKong. I and Jimmy chatted about the success of Wikipedia in India and Indian languages, he said, “Sou, the success has been limited in India and Africa, the reasons for that are very clear – access to the internet. But there is a lot that we can do and we are already doing to further the growth. I can say to people, like you from the press, to write more about Wikipedia so that people get to know that it exists.” I cannot agree more with Jimmy. Wikipedia has done immense work in India, and I wish Jimmy all success in future.

Sue looked very chic in her outfit, and echoed Jimmy too. Sue said, “Sou, we are doing a lot for the Global South, we are making Wikipedia more mobile friendly too, so that one can edit easily from their handset. And now we are providing offline versions of Wikipedia too because not everyone has a connection to the internet, but over-time everyone will. It is good to have options for other people who are not connected.” I am quite convinced that the presence of Wikipedia in India would be more in forthcoming years and Sou Boyy’s support will always remain to Wikipedia and its noble initiatives. Sue is a sweetheart, and I wish that Wikipedia becomes more international and I sanguinely anticipate there will be a Wikimania 2015 or very soon in Calcutta, India which I feel is the best place as it connects easily to Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, eastern Asia like Thailand, Malaysia and the likes. J