Nokia Foundation has awarded its annual prize to the creator of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, "for his contributions to the evolution of the World Wide Web as a platform truly participatory and democratic," reported Wednesday in a statement.
Nokia Foundation described Wales as "an individual who has contributed uniquely to accelerate the online collaboration and interaction of millions of people around the world, and to democratize the exchange of information."
Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has evolved thanks to the selfless contributions of the Internet to become one of the most consulted websites, with an average of 330 million page views per month.
Wikipedia currently hosts some 14 million articles in over 260 languages and has about 75,000 active contributors who write or edit continuously this vast amount of information.
In addition to this award, whose economic strength is 10,000 euros (14,700 dollars), Nokia Foundation distributed 77 grants worth a total of 385,000 euros (566,000 dollars) to graduate students of information technology and telecommunications to help them complete their PhD.
Nokia Foundation is an independent body created in 1995 to promote the scientific development of information technologies and communication in Finland.
Among the winners of the annual award given Nokia Foundation Linus Torvalds, founder of the free Linux operating system, who received the honor in 1997.
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