It may seem strange that I'm giving you a book. Wikipedia is digital, Wikipedia is online. I'm doing it because I want you to step back a bit and think about the changes going on in the world. Think about how people come to Wikipedia, but also think about how Wikipedia can go to people.
There is a quiet revolution going on right under our noses. Only a few people have stepped back from it to notice it. Once you see it, it's obvious and optimistic and overwhelming.
Formal education has not diminished. It bumps along about as it always has, doing a pretty good - if expensive - job, with all the problems and difficulties that we all know.
But informal education is exploding. Wikipedia is only one example, but a powerful one: 400 million people a month worldwide are visiting the website of this nonprofit charitable website to learn and to share knowledge, outside any classroom. There are hundreds of other examples, hundreds of other sites where people are learning math, foreign languages, culture, music.
Now think about the next billion people who will come online. A new Internet cable was just turned on this past summer, linking Europe to Nigeria and increasing the bandwidth to that country by a factor of 10 overnight. This is leading to an explosion in usage of the Internet in Nigeria and across Africa as wholesale broadband prices plummet.
What does this mean for the world? I don't know all the answers, no one does. But I do know this: it's a quiet revolution going on right under our noses, and one of the most important things people should be paying attention to.
I have put this book together to give you a glimpse into the pool of knowledge that Wikipedia is. The articles in this book are but a small exerpt of what is happening, and hopefully an insight on how Wikipedia tries to be part of it.
I am incredibly grateful for the recognition given to me here today, but I think and hope that the most important work lies ahead - for me, for you, for all of us on this planet. To freely share knowledge... a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet in their own language. Let's make that happen.
Jimmy Wales
Founder of Wikipedia
Rüschlikon, Switzerland - 26 January 2011