Looking for current research on successful ad campaigns such as Absolut and Nike? How about information regarding the recent stock market slump? Now this information is available not only in English, but also in Spanish and Portuguese. Recently named No. 1 "business-school portal" by Inc magazine, Knowledge@Wharton Web site was founded in 1999. Within 24 hours of the launching, the site already had 800 subscribers in 33 different countries. Today, the site has approximately 240,000 subscribers in 189 different countries. And now, to expand upon the site's audience, Knowledge@Wharton launched a companion site yesterday called Universia Knowledge@Wharton. According to Editor and Director of Knowledge@Wharton Mukul Pandya, "there is a hunger for business knowledge everywhere," and this new companion site will "help people in a small way to better understand their situation and eventually deal with it." Last February, Knowledge@Wharton collaborated with Universia.net, based in Madrid, to create the companion site. Universia.net, founded in 2000, is the largest university portal of Spanish-speaking countries. By collaborating with Universia.net, this new Web site will offer articles in both Spanish and Portuguese to reach people in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. "Spanish is the third-most widely spoken language in the world," Wharton freshman Russell Gehrett said. "If Wharton is trying to become universal, then this new site is definitely a step towards it." A variety of companies sponsor the Web site, including GE Capital, Ford Motor Company, Intel and Merrill Lynch -- and with the help of these sponsors and various journalists, Pandya said Knowledge@Wharton takes "Wharton research and worldwide conferences and publishes them in a digestible format." With over 1,500 articles and research papers, Knowledge@Wharton provides students and people in the business world with easily accessible information. The new site will first focus on translating current Knowledge@Wharton articles into Spanish and Portuguese. "It's nice to see Latin America in the mix," Wharton freshman Michael Johns said. The new site hopes to distribute Wharton's insight to the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking business community, as well as to increase Penn's popularity in Spain, Portugal and Latin America. In addition to translating current pieces, it is hoped in the future that Knowledge@Wharton will be able to cite some of the research performed at Spanish and Portuguese universities on its own Web site. This will enable Wharton students to be better informed on a wide variety of business, political and economic issues happening all over the world. Pandya will be joined in Spain by Wharton Dean Patrick Harker and Vice Dean of Executive Education Robert Mittelstaedt to launch the site. "Knowledge is power," Pandya said, and he said he believes that Universia Knowledge@Wharton will promote such power and ultimately "bring people closer together in ways we could not imagine before."
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