If knowledge is power then Lillian Grace's new website - WikiNewZealand.org - will put power in the hands of ordinary Kiwis.
The concept - which is supported by crowd funding - was seeded a year ago when the former New Zealand Institute research associate and physical education teacher sat down under a Hawke's Bay tree to think out her next hobby. She came up with a Kiwi version of Wikipedia.
Grace hopes her not-for-profit hub of information - mostly data and statistics represented as graphs and infographics - will, like the globally recognised online encyclopedia, become a universal resource for students, business people, politicians and ordinary citizens alike.
The data on Wiki New Zealand won't be coloured by ideological viewpoints, or undergo endless revisions, as occurs on Wikipedia; its main aim is to be an unfettered source of information for rational debate, whether it is used to settle a bar bet or to inform a submission to a select committee.
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