Energypedia - History

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2007	Exploration of Web 2.0 applications Energypedia was developed within the Dutch-German Energy Partnership "Energising Development" (EnDev) implemented by GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH). It all started end of 2007 when EnDev first tested wikis for internal communicational and organizational purposes like meeting notes.
2008	Development of the EnDev Wiki After the first positive experiences, a concept was developed by Robert Heine describing the benefits of using a wiki for knowledge and project management. Consequently, a first version of the prospective EnDev Wiki was developed.
2009	Increased demand creates the idea of energypedia In January 2009, EnDev finally launched the internal EnDev Wiki. The number of users increased rapidly and more and more GIZ colleagues requested accounts. As a result, EnDev decided to open the wiki for non-EnDev users by the end of 2009. This development led to the idea of launching a general wiki on renewable energy and energy efficiency. The idea of "energypedia" was born.
2010	Award-winning EnDev Wiki becomes www.energypedia.info In May 2010, the EnDev Wiki received the GTZ (now GIZ) internal quality award. Shortly afterwards energypedia was officially launched as an independent platform on June 8th 2010! However, interested experts still had to register to be able to read and write. Since then, energy experts all over the world are invited to use it for knowledge exchange on renewable energies in developing countries. At the end of 2010, already 600 experts were registered.
2011	Energypedia opens to the general public Energypedia's development speeded up quickly in 2011. In April, the first easy-to-use wiki database was installed. The PicoPV Database encompasses a probably unique collection of more than 90 small photovoltaic systems. Other databases followed like the Total Energy Wiki, a new online grassroots data collection system about energy access, which was developed in cooperation with GIZ and Practical Action. Already in spring, energypedia was planning that year's biggest development - the opening to the general public. In September, energypedia became accessible and readable for all web users without prior registration. This major step reflected our vision to contribute to an open and free knowledge-exchange on renewable energy. The opening came along with a full makeover of energypedia's design and portal structure. In this year, energypedia also experienced a tremendous increase in registered energy experts, even though registration was not obligatory for reading rights anymore. We were happy to welcome 1,000 new users at the end of 2012, increasing the energypedia community to more than 1,600 energy experts, development workers, and students from all around the world.
2012	Energypedia constituts itself as an independent non-profit company The year 2012 was especially characterized by huge organizational changes: Already in January 2012, “energypedia UG (haftungsbeschränkt)” was officially founded as a German non-profit company. This newly created body took over the responsibility for www.energypedia.info and has been in charge for its operation and continuous development since March 2012. One month later, the energypedia team started working in their own offices.