Wikipedia plans first overseas office in India

Wikipedia, one of the most popular online encyclopedia's in the world – and the fifth most popular site – will set up its first overseas office outside the US in India.

The San Francisco-based online encyclopedia, currently celebrating its 10th anniversary, sees India as a high potential country. According to Sue Gardener, executive director of the site, ''our main strategic focus right now is on India and other countries in the developing world. Massive numbers of people are starting to get connected to the internet, mostly through mobile phones but also through traditional PCs.''

Besides English, the non-profit organisation will also focus on expanding its database in Hindi and other official Indian languages. Contrasting India with China, she said the organisation opted for the former because of the fact that it valued education, free speech and a culture of intellectual debate. After India, it would focus on Brazil, but China would have to wait until the government guaranteed that Wikipedia's content would not be censored, she added.

Unlike other internet majors, Wikipedia chose not to set up servers in China as it did not want the government to interfere in publishing content. ''We made a decision that we weren't going to collaborate in our own filtering,'' adds Gardener.

Wikipedia, which currently has more than 400 million unique visitors a month, aims to cross the billion-mark in just five years. The organisation, however, has no plans to 'monetise' its capabilities by going in for an IPO. At present, it carries 17 million articles in English – adding more than1,000 new ones a day – and aims to reach the 50 million target by 2016. There are about 100,000 regulator contributors to the site.

The online site, which depends on donations to fund its activities, raised over $15 million at a fundraiser recently. It has an annual budget of just around $20 million.