Jimmy Wales
Who was Jimmy Wales?
Co-founder of Wikipedia (born 1966)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Jimmy Wales (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Jimmy Donal Wales was born on August 8, 1966, in Huntsville, Alabama. He went to Randolph School and later earned finance degrees from Auburn University and the University of Alabama. He started graduate studies at Indiana University Bloomington, teaching at two universities at the same time, but left without completing his PhD. Afterward, he worked in finance and became chief research officer at Chicago Options Associates in Chicago, Illinois.
In 1996, Wales co-founded Bomis, an internet portal and search engine that funded his dream of creating an online encyclopedia. Using money from Bomis, he launched Nupedia in 2000, a peer-reviewed online encyclopedia that relied on expert contributions. However, Nupedia was slow, producing only a handful of articles in its three years. This led Wales and editor-in-chief Larry Sanger to open up the model for more collaborative writing.
On January 15, 2001, Wales launched Wikipedia with Larry Sanger and others, using wiki software that allowed anyone online to contribute and edit articles. The project grew quickly, surpassing Nupedia and eventually becoming one of the most visited sites worldwide. Wales became the face of the project, traveling globally to talk about open knowledge, free information, and volunteer collaboration. His role in Wikipedia's founding has sometimes been controversial, especially regarding how he has credited Larry Sanger's contributions.
Besides Wikipedia, Wales co-founded Fandom, formerly called Wikia, a wiki hosting site for communities interested in films, games, and TV. He has also been involved with WikiTribune, a news platform to fight misinformation through community-led journalism, and WT Social, a social networking site later renamed Trust Café. He has written The Seven Rules of Trust and spoken at many conferences and institutions on internet governance, free knowledge, and trust in media.
Wales has received many awards for his contributions to online information sharing. He won the EFF Pioneer Award in 2006 and the Quadriga prize in 2008. He was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013 and received the UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal the same year. He has also been honored with the Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize, the Dan David Prize, the Leonardo Award, and the President's Medal, among others. He has been married three times, to Pamela Green, Christine Rohan, and Kate Garvey, and holds both American and British citizenship.
Before Fame
Jimmy Wales grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, a city known for its ties to the American space program and military research, which gave the area a focus on science, engineering, and education. His mother ran a small private school where Wales got much of his early education, an experience that likely influenced his later interest in making knowledge widely accessible. He attended Randolph School before studying finance at Auburn University and the University of Alabama.
After his academic career hit a roadblock during graduate school at Indiana University Bloomington, Wales shifted his focus to the financial sector, working as a futures and options trader in Chicago. During this time, he developed a strong interest in the internet's potential as a tool for sharing information. His readings in libertarian philosophy and involvement with online communities in the early 1990s strengthened his belief in open access to knowledge, ideas that would directly shape the projects he would create in the future.
Key Achievements
- Co-founded Wikipedia on January 15, 2001, which grew into the world's largest free online encyclopedia with millions of articles in hundreds of languages.
- Co-founded Fandom (formerly Wikia), a for-profit wiki hosting platform supporting thousands of community-built wikis worldwide.
- Received the Internet Hall of Fame induction and the UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal, both in 2013, recognizing his contributions to global access to information.
- Established the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that oversees Wikipedia and related projects, and has served on its board since its founding.
- Received the Dan David Prize in 2015 and the EFF Pioneer Award in 2006 for his role in democratizing access to knowledge through open-source collaboration.
Did You Know?
- 01.Wales has held a board-appointed 'community founder' seat on the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees since its creation in 2003, giving him a permanent formal role in the organization.
- 02.Wikipedia was originally conceived as a feeder project for Nupedia, intended to help generate draft articles that could eventually be reviewed and published by Nupedia's expert editorial staff.
- 03.Wales gives an annual 'State of the Wiki' address at Wikimania, the international conference of Wikipedia and Wikimedia contributors.
- 04.Time magazine named Wales one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006, the same year he received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award.
- 05.Wales funded the early development of Wikipedia through Bomis, an internet company he co-founded in 1996 that operated a web portal and search engine with adult content as part of its revenue model.
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Quadriga | 2008 | — |
| EFF Award | 2006 | — |
| Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize | 2011 | — |
| UNESCO Niels Bohr Medal | 2013 | — |
| Internet Hall of Fame | 2013 | — |
| Young Global Leaders | 2007 | — |
| Leonardo Award | 2011 | — |
| Dan David Prize | 2015 | — |
| President's Medal | 2017 | — |
| Nokia Foundation Recognition Award | 2009 | — |