Jimmy Wales is coming to Bristol!

According to Wikipedia, Wikipedia was founded on January 15 2001.  Obviously, since  Wikipedia is full of untruths and inaccuracies, I thought I'd better check my facts.  But even Encyclopaedia Britannica agrees that January 15th 2001 was the day, so it must be true, mustn't it?  ;)

In ten years Wikipedia has progressed from a tiny little backwater website into the seventh most popular website in the world and now has 3.4 million articles in its English language version.  Even more amazing is that, unlike Britannica, this was done with just a handful of paid staff - the entire encyclopaedia was written by unpaid contributors, people like you and me.  (If you want to be part of this amazing phenomenon be sure to read this page.)  But despite this global-scale crowdsourcing , none of this would have happened without the efforts of one man - Jimmy Wales.  And the amazing thing is - he's coming to Bristol!

This is a very rare opportunity to hear from someone that's created something that's had such a big impact on the world so make sure your diary is clear on 13 January 2011 12.00-13.00.  It'll be at the Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol and if you want a ticket send an email to  jimmywales-bristol@bristol.ac.uk.

This event has been organised in association with Bristol Festival of Ideas, Connecting Bristol, Bristol City Council, BBC Anchor Trust and Wikimedia UK.  I'm sure Brrismers will join me in thanking them for doing this.  :)