Jimmy Wales

GRANVILLE, Ohio — Chances are, if you’ve done any research on the Internet, you’ve been on a free, open-source Wikipedia page. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will lecture at 7:30 p.m., on Wednesday, Dec. 8, in Denison University’s Swasey Chapel (200 Chapel Drive). The lecture is free and open to the public. Doors will open 45 minutes prior to the lecture.

In explaining his motivation for developing the collaborative web-based encyclopedia, Wales has said, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” The success of Wikipedia led to Wales being named one of the “100 Most Influential People of the Year” by TIME magazine in 2006. Wales also created the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content. And he co-founded Wikia, a privately-owned free web-hosting service.

The lecture is sponsored by the Spectrum Series, Denison’s yearlong campus-wide series that supports campus collaboration around an annual theme. It is also sponsored by the University Programming Council, the Denison Lecture Series, the Entrepreneurship Club, and the Burton D. Morgan Program in Liberal Arts and Entrepreneurship.

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CALENDAR LISTING, Denison University, Granville — Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales lecture at 7:30 p.m., on Wednesday, Dec. 8, in Denison University’s Swasey Chapel (200 Chapel Drive). Free and open to the public. For more information, contact Marlaine Browning at 740-587-6206 or visit www.denison.edu.