Five years! Thank you for helping us grow
It’s time to celebrate! This year Open Knowledge Maps turns five. Since its foundation in 2016, our non-profit organization has grown, and many people - including you - have contributed to this incredible success story.
So how did we become the largest visual discovery service for research? Let’s take a look at some of our highlights - with a big announcement at the end.
11,000 users on the first day
Our journey to revolutionize discovery began with a group of nine volunteers, who had a vision and a working prototype. On 11 May 2016, we nervously pressed the button to launch the first version of Open Knowledge Maps. To our surprise we went viral instantly. 11,000 people were already using our tool on the very first day! What a great momentum to continue on.
Together we change the way we discover research
Our mission to offer an open alternative to the outdated commercial discovery systems resonated deeply with the community. Over the next five years, we improved our service considerably and we took on a variety of funded projects. Our community grew and many of you offered your help. In 2016, we welcomed our first advisors and partners. In 2018, we established our first Enthusiasts program and in 2019, our first supporting members joined us.
Community is at the core of Open Knowledge Maps: we are both community-owned and community-driven. Your support was critical in transforming a pure volunteer team into an organisation with staff and a permanent office in Vienna.
Where we are today
Today, we offer users to search within 270 million documents via BASE. We have recorded more than 1.3 million visits on our website, and more than 600,000 maps were created. Fourteen organizations have already joined us as supporting members - and more will be announced soon.
Our achievements did not go unnoticed. We were featured in more than 100 publication venues and events, including Nature, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the EOSC Symposium, and we were awarded the Austrian Prize for Free Knowledge and the Austrian Open Source award. We are actively contributing to the European Open Science Cloud as a project partner in TRIPLE and as coordinator of the GO FAIR Implementation Network on Data Discovery.
Say hello to Open Knowledge Maps 1.0 🎉
With all the achievements of the past five years, including substantial improvements to our platform, we are ready to remove the beta label from Open Knowledge Maps. We are excited to announce the official release of version 1.0! Head over to our search and let us know what you think.
Thank you for using and supporting Open Knowledge Maps. We look forward to a bright future and to continuing this exciting journey with all of you.
Try out OKMaps 1.0
