On January 2 , 2001 , Ben Kovitz , Sanger 's friend , had the idea to use a wiki to help to make Nupedia better . According to all known documents actually dating from before 2005 , the critical concept of marrying two of the three fundamental elements of Wikipedia , namely an encyclopedia and a wiki , first took form when Sanger met up with an old friend , Ben Kovitz . This meeting occurred at a dinner on January 2 , 2001 , and it was here that Sanger was first introduced to the functionality of wiki software .