Originally co-founded by Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and Internet project developer Larry Sanger, the technological and conceptual origins of Wikipedia actually predate them by several years.

Pic/AFP

Internet pioneer Rick Gates best known for his online search game, The Internet Hunt, where contestants were supposed to answer questions using means online sources like Usenet, FTP, Gopher and Telnet, was the first to propose an online encyclopedia.

Gates proposed in an Usenet newsgroup to collaboratively create an encyclopaedia on the Internet on October 22, 1993. The idea, which would go on to be called Interpedia is considered a precursor to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia had its initial origins for a free-online English language web encyclopedia project named Nupedia, which was an undertaking of a web portal company named Bomis on March 9, 2000. Jimmy Wales, who was one of the founders and owners of Bomis, is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia. Wales came up with the broader idea of an open-source, collaborative encyclopedia that would accept contributions from ordinary people and he invested in it to achieve that purpose.