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Wikipedia given Spain's Princess of Asturias International Co-operation award

Xinhua, June 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia was on Wednesday announced as the winner of the 2015 Princess of Asturias Award for International Co-operation.

The jury gave Wikipedia the award after considering it is an example of "democratic, open and participative" collaboration which thousands of people worldwide carry out for no personal gain.

The online encyclopedia, which has been in existence since 2001 and whose web functions without publicity relying instead on private donations, is according to the jury, something which "puts universal knowledge within reach of the entire world in the same way as the encyclopedist spirit did in the seventeenth century."

Around 80,000 people worldwide contribute to Wikipedia, which contains 4.3 million articles in English, but which also functions in other languages with over 37 million entries in total.

The Princess of Asturias Awards aim to reward: "the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions," and are the most prestigious annual awards in Spain.

The winners receive a certificate, a 50,000 euro cash prize (around 56,000 U.S. Dollars) and a statue by artist Joan Miro, which are presented in ceremony in the city of Oviedo in October.

This is the seventh of the eight different categories: Arts, Social Sciences, Sport, Concord, Literature, International Cooperation, Technical and Scientific Research and Communications and Humanities to be awarded

So far the 2015 winners are Leonard Padura for Literature, Pau and Marc Gasol for Sports, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, Scientific Investigation, Emilio Lledo, Humanities; Esther Duflo, Social Sciences and Francis Ford Coppola, who won the Arts Award. Endit