Wimba

Yesterday I received an email inquiry from a graduate student enrolled in the Masters in Bioethics and Health Policy program through Loyola University in Chicago.  However, unlike most email inquiries I receive, this one had nothing to do with asking how to effectively use Wimba Classroom or what kind of headset we recommend.  Nope.  This one asked the simple question, “What does ‘Wimba’ stand for?”

Ah yes,  a question for the ages.

When I worked at HorizonLive in the first half of this decade, I was quite familiar with Wimba, which at that same time was exclusively selling what we now refer to as Wimba Voice.  I too wondered what this funny sounding word meant, and immediately Googled the term and first found a listing for the Wisconsin Mortgage Brokers Association.  That surely wasn’t correct.  As I next found the real Wimba website, I scoured its pages only to come up empty in my quest to find the meaning of the word.  But fortunately, a few months later HorizonLive and Wimba joined forces and I had instant access to those who knew the meaning of ‘Wimba.’  They happily passed it along to me, but I, like my new colleagues had done for many years, vowed to keep the meaning of Wimba close to my vest.

So, before you all get too excited and think I’m about to reveal the true meaning, I’m going to tease you a bit.  I’m curious to see if anyone out there knows the meaning of ‘Wimba.’  I’m accepting all ideas.  And for the record, unlike that grad student’s classmate thought, ‘Wimba’ is NOT a small town in Victoria, Australia that was a station on a narrow gauge railroad for transporting timber.

Any ideas?


Matt