Wikimedia to open first non-US office in India

WASHINGTON - Wikimedia Foundation, the owners of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, plans to open an office in India to take advantage of the country’s open internet culture.

The planned office, expected to open in the next few months, would be the non-profit charitable organization’s first office outside the United States.
“There is a lot of enthusiasm for Wikimedia in India, a strong community within India and a general commitment to free knowledge,” News.co.au quoted Barry Newstead, Wikimedia Chief Global Development Officer, as saying.

“We hope to support Indians to realize the vision of ‘a world in which every single person can freely share in the sum of all knowledge’,” he added.

According to reports, Wikimedia co-founder Jimmy Wales will visit Mumbai on Sunday to hold meetings to discuss the group’s strategy for the country.

Wikimedia’s flagship project, Wikipedia, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide.

Since its creation in 2001, the site has grown rapidly and attracted nearly 78 million visitors monthly as of January 2010, Wikipedia says on its website.

There are more than 91,000 active contributors working on more than 16 million articles in over 270 languages.

Wikimedia also operates several other online collaborative projects including Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikimedia Incubator and Meta-Wiki. (ANI)