Whitehall Taps Wisdom of Wikipedia's Wales

British Prime Minister David Cameron has appointed Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales as a consultant for a new crowdsourcing initiative, designed to encourage the public to get more involved in policy-making.

In his new unpaid role, Wales will advise on developing new ways technology can be used to give the public more of a say in the policy-making process.

Wales co-founded the online encyclopedia - originally known as Nupedia - in 2000. Prior to this, he was an options trader in Chicago, where he saved enough money to start the online organization. The platform is now available in more than 270 languages, and contains more than 20 million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of over 100,000 people.

Wales moved to London from the US to marry fiancée Kate Garvey, who was previously Tony Blair's diary secretary. According to The Financial Times, he is due to take up the new advisory position next month.