FreeRice

FreeRice is a non-profit website where visitors answer questions to donate grains of rice to the less fortunate around the world."About" - FreeRice
Questions are available on a variety of subjects, such as English grammar and the multiplication table, to more advanced categories like German and Italian."Categories" - FreeRice
Grains are paid for by ads that appear after players provide a correct answer, with the profits being donated to the World Food Programme.
Although creating an account isn't required, it lets people track their total amount of rice donated and join groups.
==History==
FreeRice was founded in October 2007 by computer programmer John Breen as a way to help his son study for the SAT."Free Rice Expands Your Word Power and Feeds the Hungry". WIRED. March 4, 2010.
It quickly went viral, becoming the most visited humanitarian website for the November 11-17 week and visitors donated more than 2.5 billion grains of rice in its first 2 months."Click on FreeRice.com to feed a child for thanksgiving". World Food Programme. November 20, 2007. The amount of grains donated per question has varied. The average is 10 grains, though some ads pay enough for 40."FAQ" - FreeRice
Breen handed ownership of FreeRice over to the World Food Programme in 2009, hoping it could further grow under them. A "2.0" version launched in September 2010, which introduced support for accounts, groups, achievements and posting to social media."Freerice.com" (October 2010 archive) Translated versions of the site in other languages were added in 2011, including Spanish, Chinese and French among others.
==Awards==
*Digital Communications Award 2011 – Best Corporate Game"Digital Communications Awards 2011 - Winners"
*TIME Magazine – 50 Best Websites (2008 and 2011)"50 Best Websites 2008". Time."50 Websites That Make the Web Great". Time. August 16, 2011.
*15th Annual Webby Awards – Honoree"Webby Honorees"
*2010 Parent's Choice Awards – Online Learning"Survey - Educational" - 2010 Parent's Choice Awards
*Yahoo! Pick of the Year 2007 – Charity Category"Charity Find of the Year 2007: Free Rice" - Yahoo!
*Berkman Award to FreeRice creator, John Breen. Recipients of the award were chosen for their outstanding contributions to the internet's impact on society over the past 10 years.
==Team Jiggmin==
Main article: Team Jiggmin#FreeRice
Members of Jiggmin's Village created a FreeRice group in 2011 named after their Folding@home team. Jiggmin had no involvement in creating the group, though did give it a section on the forum.
The group went through 2 incarnations. The first was created in July 2011 before being controversially deleted on September 30th."Team Jiggmin Helps The Hungry". Jiggmin's Village. July 26, 2011."New Group for Creation". Jiggmin's Village. September 30, 2011. The current one was set up later the same day."New Free Rice team". Jiggmin's Village. October 1, 2011.
As of November 2016, Team Jiggmin is ranked 31 on the site, has donated 33,940,070 grains of rice and had 444 contributors."Team Jiggmin" - Freerice.com"Groups List, page 2" - Freerice.com
==References==
Category:Projects
Category:Websites