KUALA LUMPUR: Believing that everybody in this world, regardless of country and economic status, has the right to free information, Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia, is pushing a noble effort known as Wikipedia Zero.
Speaking to a full house audience at the Leadership Energy Summit Asia (LESA) in Kuala Lumpur, Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales says the idea of the initiative is to give people free access to knowledge.
"We want to go to places where data is still very expensive to the community in that particular place, and we want them to get access to Wikipedia, as our goal is to provide free access to knowledge," he says.
In under-developed and developing countries like Africa, Asia, he says, free access to medical information and knowledge could save people from diseases and in the area of education for instance.
"They could read about it in their own language and do something about it," he says.
Wikipedia has 34 million articles in more than 250 languages, and has become the point of reference for many subject matters, by far making it the most linguistically-diversified website.
Wales says the big drive about Wikipedia is that the contributors know that they have huge impact on the world with their articles and information, especially in the developing countries.
But what has been hindering people in these countries is the high data access cost.
"Smartphones cost has gone down tremendously over the years, and more people in developing countries can afford them," says Wales, referring to China-made phones, which offers basic features like browser, WiFi, Bluetooth, basic resolution screen, and sufficient battery life making it more than enough for people to go online.
He even showed a China-made Android phone he bought in Nigeria two years that costs around US$70 (RM297), and could probably costs below US$50 (RM212) today.
"These phones have the same features as the first-generation iPhone, which costs around US$800 (RM3390)," he says.
The Wikipedia team has been lobbying the Wikipedia Zero concept to telecommunications providers in developing countries around the world and so far the effort has gotten some very positive respond.
To date 70 countries have participated in the effort. In Malaysia DiGi Telecommunications is offering it.
"In theory today there are 620 million people who have access to Wikipedia, benefiting those with carriers where we signed deals with," says Wales.
"This would allow anyone with basic feature phones to access vital information like health, medication, and education," he says, adding that it's a win-win programme for the consumers, the carriers and Wikipedia.