Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation are teaming-up to provide more than 70 million Orange customers in Africa and the Middle East (AMEA) with free mobile access to Wikipedia. The goal of the partnership is to “make knowledge more easily available to Orange mobile customers,” while getting some press love along the way. And since it’s a good cause, we can’t help but give the operator exposure at IntoMobile.
This new partnership will be gradually launched throughout 2012 across 20 African and Middle Eastern countries, with the first markets launching early in the year. The initiative is part of the Wikimedia Foundation’s mobile strategy that aims to reach the billions of people around the world who access the internet solely through mobile devices.
Any customer with an Orange SIM and mobile internet enabled phone will be able to access the Wikipedia site either through their browser or an Orange widget. Everything is free as long as users stay within Wikipedia’s pages…