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Freerice

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Freerice
Type of site
Click-to-donate site
HeadquartersRome, Italy
OwnerThe World Food Programme
Created byJohn Breen
URLfreerice.com
CommercialNo

Freerice is a free online game and learning tool, that allows players to raise rice to fight world hunger while learning through educational, multiple-choice games. For every question the user answers correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to the World Food Programme.

The available subjects include English vocabulary (the original subject with which the game launched), multiplication tables, pre-algebra, chemical symbols (basic or intermediate), English grammar, SAT, basic foreign language vocabulary for English speakers (French, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish), human anatomy, geography (flags of the world, world capitals, country identification and world landmarks), the identification of famous artwork, and literature (classic and popular books). Total score is displayed as a mound of rice and the amount grains.

History

The website went live on October 7, 2007 with 830 grains of rice donated on its first day. The second word in its name was originally capitalized as "FreeRice."

On 20 November 2007, the WFP launched a campaign to "feed a child for Thanksgiving," encouraging internet users "to take time out from traditionally the busiest online shopping period of the year and help the hungry by playing phenomenally successful web-based vocab game, FreeRice."[2]

For a brief while, the amount of rice donated per correct answer was increased to 20 grains, though this was reduced to 10 grains of rice per answer within a few months.

In March 2009 the FreeRice website was donated to the UN World Food Programme.

Freerice 2.0 launch

In September 2010, the UN World Food Program launched a new version of the game with social networking, groups, rankings and achievements. As part of the launch, the site dropped the second capitalization in its name, going from "FreeRice" to "Freerice."

Freerice Language Versions

In 2011, Freerice launched new language versions of the website in Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese and Korean, allowing users to play the popular game across a number of subjects in their own language for the first time. Freerice China is currently offline, as the World Food Programme has ended its contract with the partner responsible for building and maintaining it.

Sustenance

Using the "click-to-donate" model, for every correct answer selected a sponsored advert is displayed below the questions to cover the cost of the grains raised. The total funds raised through the sponsored adverts covers the cost of the rice donated. All the costs for running the website are covered by the site owner, the United Nations's World Food Programme or vendors supplying their services free of charge. The donations are distributed by the (WFP). Following the earthquake in Haiti, nearly 6 billion grains were donated to help communities there, however, the most common countries receiving rice are Bangladesh, Cambodia, Bhutan, Uganda, and Nepal, even though Freerice can travel all over the world (as of early 2008). By this time, the site's creator had given over US$213,000 to the WFP which encouraged people to visit freerice.com.[3]

Effectiveness

Average number of adults fed per day by daily average of each month.

In its first ten months of operation, Freerice donated over 42 billion grains of rice. One month after the inception of the viral marketing program, users had earned enough points for one billion grains of rice. The United Nation's World Food Program stated that this amount could feed 50,000 people for one day,[4] since it takes 400 grams or about 19,200 grains of rice to feed one adult for a day.[5] Using this calculation, enough rice was donated in 2008 to feed over 6,000 people daily for each day of that year.[6] Since its inception, as of April 3, 2013, Freerice players had earned sufficient rice for over 10 million meals, assuming 2 meals per day.

Awards

  • Digital Communications Award 2011 - Best Corporate Game
  • TIME Magazine - 50 Best Websites 2011
  • 15th Annual Webby Awards - Honoree
  • 2010 Parent's Choice Awards - Online Learning
  • TIME Magazine - 50 Best Websites 2008 -
  • Yahoo! Pick of the Year 2007 – Charity Category – Winner[7]
  • Berkman Award to Freerice.com creator, John Breen. He was recognized with a Berkman Award on May 16, 2008 for creating Freerice.com. At the Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society’s tenth anniversary gala dinner, recipients of the Berkman Awards were chosen for their outstanding contributions to the Internet’s impact on society over the past 10 years.

Monthly count

Total donations to date.
Total donations to date.

2013

2013
Month Monthly grains of rice donated Overall grains of rice donated
January 2013 349,662,210 98,089,163,666
February 2013 266,649,290 98,355,812,956
March 2013 319,206,710 98,675,019,666
April 2013 459,399,440 99,134,419,106
May 2013 310,023,720 99,444,442,826
June 2013 195,811,600 99,640,254,426
July 2013 193,237,430 99,833,491,856
August 2013
September 2013
October 2013
November 2013
December 2013

Total All Dates: 99,833,491,856 [9]

Milestones

  • October 7, 2007 – Freerice launches with 830 grains of rice donated on its first day
  • November 10, 2007 – Freerice breaks the one-day 100,000,000-grain milestone with 122,377,240 donated grains
  • November 28, 2007 – With continued sponsor support, Freerice doubles the number of grains donated for each correct definition from 10 to 20
  • December 17, 2007 – Freerice breaks the one-day 300,000,000-grain milestone with 358,559,540 donated grains
  • December 19, 2007 – 10 billion grains donated in total
  • April 2, 2008 – 25 billion grains donated in total
  • November 11, 2008 – 50 billion grains donated in total
  • September 2010 – a new version of the game was launched with social networking and group functionality
  • January 2011 - 85 billion grains donated in total
  • June 2011 - A Spanish version is launched
  • September 2011 - A French version and Italian version are launched
  • October 2011 - A Chinese version is launched
  • December 2011 - A Korean version is launched
  • January 2012 - Over 94 billion grains donated in total and over 1 million registered players
  • February 2012 - The first official World Freerice Week was held, and two new subjects launched (World Landmarks and Human Anatomy)
  • April 2012 - Launched an SAT subject

References

  1. ^ "Freerice.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2013-09-01.
  2. ^ "Feed a child for Thanksgiving".
  3. ^ Freerice in WFP's video log (accessed on February 7, 2008).
  4. ^ "Web game provides rice for hungry". BBC News. 2007-11-10.
  5. ^ http://www.slideshare.net/GreenBeingNancy/400-grams-of-rice
  6. ^ "Total Donations By Date". Archived from the original on 2008-03-26. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
  7. ^ Find of the Year 2007, Category Charity (accessed on February 7, 2008).
  8. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20101207184318/http://www.freerice.com/frmisc/totals
  9. ^ http://freerice.com/frmisc/totals
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