Free Rice - all in one timewaster, vocab builder and feeder of the poor

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Productivity

Free Rice - all in one timewaster, vocab builder and feeder of the poor

by Dolores Parker Nov 16th 2007

As you take advantage of your four hour work week (ok, that's your New Year's resolution) you've got to love efficiency. Free Rice is a site that lets you build your English vocabulary, and while doing so, it donates grains of rice to the United Nations to help stop world hunger. The donation of rice is made possible by the unobtrusive ads that line the bottom of the screen.

We like to think of this as a three-fer - you help end world hunger, build your vocabulary all the while, and waste time in an efficient and productive manner since you are using some brain cells to advance to the next vocabulary word. According to Free Rice, there are 50 levels of difficulty, however, it is rare for people to advance past level 48.

Since launching on October 7, Free Rice has donated 2,098,280,280 grains of rice. All proceeds from the advertising revenue goes directly to the UN's World Food Program.

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com. The founder is John Breen, a computer programmer, with a keen interest in global poverty issues.

Tags: feed the poor, Free rice, productivity, Timewaster, United Nations World Food Program, vocabulary builder

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Andrew Velis said 5:07PM on 11-16-2007

already been on digg. catch up download squad.

Joel Verhagen said 5:53PM on 11-16-2007

not really a "time waster" if it's feeding the needy...

steven said 3:37AM on 11-18-2007

I hope all that rice doesn’t end up in the hands of some warlord somewhere.

mr said 10:06PM on 12-13-2007

Can "Free Rice" set up words for children so that they can participate in this good will endeavor?

Dolores Parker said 10:24PM on 12-13-2007

That's a great idea. I'll check with them and see what they say. Thanks!

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