Google donates 2 million dollars to Wikimedia

With their emblematic project Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation has filled their piggy bank thanks to the substantial donation of two million dollars from Google.

Known as the co-founder of the free Wikipedia encyclopaedia, Jimmy Wales couldn’t bite his tongue before the official announcement; instead letting the cat out of the bag through Twitter that Google gave a donation of two million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation!

The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation whose aim is to spread knowledge freely to as many people as possible. Besides Wikipedia, they also guide numerous projects including: Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikimedia Commons and Wikinews. At the beginning of the year, they totalled up their 2009 contributions, with their total of more than 8 million dollars coming from the generous donations of 240 000 people. A short time after, they suddenly found an extra 2 million dollars.

Ahead of the release, the Wikimedia Foundation’s director divulged the contents of the press conference planned for the reception of Google’s donation. Sue Gardner underlined that this "great news" wasn’t just financial but also symbolic: "I believe that Wikimedia and Google are natural allies and partners. We both want to help provide people everywhere around the world with information ".

While Google and the Wikimedia Foundation have already worked together, notably on the translation of Wikipedia content, this is the first time that Google has made such a donation. These funds will help support Wikimedia’s technical infrastructure which has to support an increasing amount of global traffic, while also helping to make the Wikipedia service easier to use and more accessible through increased development.

Jimmy Wales called this a "wonderful gift", while Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google spoke of Wikipedia as "one of the greatest triumphs of the internet" with their collective knowledge made available to everyone online.