# Wikimedian of the Year

The Wikimedian of the Year is an annual award that honors Wikipedia editors and other contributors to Wikimedia projects to highlight major achievements within the Wikimedia movement, established in August 2011 by Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales. Wales selects the recipients and honors them at Wikimania, an annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation—except in 2020, 2021, and 2022 when the recipients were announced at online meetings as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2011 to 2016, the award was named Wikipedian of the Year.

## History

In 2011, the first title was given to Rauan Kenzhekhanuly for his work on the Kazakh Wikipedia. The following year, it was awarded to an editor identified as "Demmy" for creating a bot to translate 15,000 short English articles into Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria. In 2013, Rémi Mathis of Wikimédia France and the French Wikipedia was named for his role in an article controversy. In 2014, the award was given posthumously to Ukrainian journalist Ihor Kostenko, who actively promoted the Ukrainian Wikipedia on social networking sites and was killed during a protest. Wales named an undisclosed recipient in 2015, and hopes someday to tell their story. In 2016, the first joint award was presented to Emily Temple-Wood and Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight for their efforts to combat harassment on Wikipedia and increase its coverage of women. Other recipients include Felix Nartey in 2017, Farhad Fatkullin in 2018, Emna Mizouni in 2019, Sandister Tei in 2020, Alaa Najjar in 2021, Olga Paredes in 2022, Taufik Rosman in 2023, and the youngest recipient, Hannah Clover, in 2024.
In addition to the main award, Susanna Mkrtchyan and Satdeep Gill were the first to receive honorable mentions in 2015 which continued until 2018. In 2021, the honorable mention award was re-introduced, but with a focus on affiliate staff or officers.
The award was expanded in 2021 with additional categories including Media Contributor of the Year, Newcomer of the Year, Tech Contributor of the Year, and Wikimedia Laureate. In 2024, an additional category of Functionary of the Year was added.

## Lists of award recipients
### Wikimedian of the Year (formerly Wikipedian of the Year)

List of Wikimedian of the Year winners :
| Year | Image | Recipient | Principal project | Rationale | Ref. |
| 2011 | | Rauan Kenzhekhanuly | Kazakh Wikipedia | Kenzhekhanuly recruited a stable community to improve the Kazakh Wikipedia, which in a year increased from 4 to over 200 active editors, and 7,000 to 130,000 articles. Wales was criticized by fellow Wikipedians because of Kenzhekhanuly's ties to the government of Kazakhstan. Wales stated on Reddit in 2015 that he'd been unaware of Kenzhekhanuly's prior positions in the Kazakh government and said that if he had known Kenzhekhanuly was going to go on to become deputy governor of a Kazakh region, he would have "refused to give that award". | [2] [4] |
| 2012 | — | "Demmy" | Yoruba Wikipedia | "Demmy" created a bot to translate 15,000 short English articles into Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria. | |
| 2013 | | Rémi Mathis | French Wikipedia | Mathis, a chairman of Wikimédia France and a French Wikipedia administrator, who received the honor for his role in the controversy surrounding the French article "Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station". | [5] [6] |
| 2014 | | Ihor Kostenko | Ukrainian Wikipedia | Kostenko, a Euromaidan activist, was an editor on the Ukrainian Wikipedia and actively promoted it on social networking sites. He was killed during a protest on February 20, 2014, and received the award posthumously. | [7] [8] |
| 2015 | — | Undisclosed | Wikimedia Commons | Wales named an anonymous Venezuelan editor in pectore, and hopes someday to tell the reasons why without endangering the recipient. | |
| 2016 | | Emily Temple-Wood | English Wikipedia | The first joint recipients for their efforts to combat harassment on Wikipedia and increase its coverage of women. Temple-Wood had created nearly 400 articles and improved hundreds more, many of which are about women scientists and women's health. Stephenson-Goodknight had improved more than 3,000 articles, co-created a space to welcome new contributors to the site, and co-founded women's outreach projects, including the "WikiWomen's User Group", "WikiProject Women", and the "Women in Red" campaign. | [10] [11] [12] [13] |
| 2016 | | Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight | English Wikipedia | The first joint recipients for their efforts to combat harassment on Wikipedia and increase its coverage of women. Temple-Wood had created nearly 400 articles and improved hundreds more, many of which are about women scientists and women's health. Stephenson-Goodknight had improved more than 3,000 articles, co-created a space to welcome new contributors to the site, and co-founded women's outreach projects, including the "WikiWomen's User Group", "WikiProject Women", and the "Women in Red" campaign. | [10] [11] [12] [13] |
| 2017 | | Felix Nartey | English Wikipedia | Nartey received the award for his addition of content about his home country, Ghana, and leading several initiatives to promote the importance of editing Wikipedia. In his dedication, Wales mentioned that Nartey played a leading role in the organization of the 2nd Wiki Indaba conference 2017 in Accra, and has been critical in building up the local communities in Africa. | |
| 2018 | | Farhad Fatkullin | Tatar Wikipedia | Fatkullin joined the Wikimedia movement in 2009. He describes himself as being "in love with Tatar Wikipedia". From 2015, Fatkullin has been contributing to Wikipedia on languages of Russia, including Tatar. | |
| 2019 | | Emna Mizouni | Arabic Wikipedia | In 2013, Mizouni with other people founded Carthagina. She began contributing to Wikimedia projects in 2013 with that year's Wiki Loves Monuments. She has helped to organize several major Wikimedia conferences, including the inaugural WikiArabia conference, and co-chaired Wikimania 2018's program committee. In 2016, she joined the Affiliations Committee and in 2018, she became vice-chairperson of it. | |
| 2020 | | Sandister Tei | English Wikipedia | Tei contributed actively to Wikipedia articles about the COVID-19 pandemic's impact in Ghana. | |
| 2021 | | Alaa Najjar | Arabic Wikipedia | Najjar was honored at the Wikimania 2021 conference, which was held virtually, for his work on Arabic Wikipedia and on medical projects, especially the COVID-19 project. | |
| 2022 | | Olga Paredes | Spanish Wikipedia | Paredes was honored at the virtual Wikimania 2022 conference for her leadership in communities including Wikimujeres and Wikimedistas de Bolivia, and for encouraging others, especially women, to grow the Wikimedia movement. | |
| 2023 | | Taufik Rosman | Wikidata, Malay Wiktionary | Taufik was honored at the 2023 Wikimania conference in Singapore for his massive contributions to the Malay Wiktionary and for the help given in fostering a positive community of Malaysian Wikimedia editors. | |
| 2024 | | Hannah Clover | English Wikipedia | Clover, a Canadian also known as Clovermoss, collected the stories of over 200 editors through her "editor reflections" project. She also advocated for new editors and those editing on smartphones. She was the youngest recipient of the award, at age 21. | |

### Honorable mentions

List of Wikimedian of the Year honorable mentions :
| Year | Image | Recipient | Principal project | Rationale | Ref. |
| 2015 | | Susanna Mkrtchyan | Armenian Wikipedia | Mkrtchyan is a member of the board of directors from Wikimedia Armenia. She was awarded for her off-wiki activities including "One Armenian – One Article", an editing campaign and youth camp project to aid new editors of Armenia. | |
| 2015 | | Satdeep Gill | Punjabi Wikipedia (Eastern) | Gill is an Indian contributor on the Punjabi Wikipedia. He was awarded for encouraging people at his university to edit the Punjabi Wikipedia, making it the fastest-growing Indic-language Wikipedia that year. | |
| 2016 | | Mardetanha | Persian Wikipedia | Mardetanha created the Persian-language version of the "Wikipedia Library", which helps editors to find sources for articles. Three publishers have donated the research access to their works to editors. | |
| 2016 | | Vassia Atanassova | Bulgarian Wikipedia | Atanassova established the "#100wikidays" contest, which challenges editors to create one Wikipedia article per day for one hundred days. Over 120 contributors joined the contest and third of the editors have completed it. | |
| 2017 | — | Diego Gómez | — | Colombian student who was prosecuted for copyright violation after having shared an academic paper online. He was later acquitted. | [24] [25] |
| 2018 | | Nahid Sultan | Bangla Wikipedia | Sultan is an active member of Wikimedia Bangladesh. | [26] [27] |
| 2018 | | Jess Wade | English Wikipedia | Wade is a physicist who began a year-long effort to create Wikipedia articles about scientists and engineers which "better represent women and people of colour". As of February 2020, she had written over 900 new articles. | [28] [29] [30] |
| 2021 | | Netha Hussain | English Wikipedia, Malayalam Wikipedia | Hussain is a medical practitioner originally from India. She has provided invaluable contributions to medical content on Wikimedia projects, focusing much of her effort during 2020–21 on the coverage of COVID-19. She also started the Vaccine Safety Project to address misinformation surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. | |
| 2021 | | Carmen Alcázar | Spanish Wikipedia | Alcázar was recognized for her work to reduce the gender gap on Spanish Wikipedia. | |
| 2022 | | Anna Torres | Spanish Wikipedia | Torres is the executive director of Wikimedia Argentina, but her recognition in the Honorable Mentions category is for her efforts to create an international support network to grow and build capacity for communities across Latin America, as well as her contributions to movement processes, such as the 2030 Wikimedia Movement Strategy. | |
| 2023 | | Anton Protsiuk | Ukrainian Wikipedia | Protsiuk is the Programmes Coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine. | |
| 2024 | | Gu Eun-ae | Korean Wikipedia | Gu is the director of Wikimedia Korea, which she helped found. | |

### Newcomer of the Year

The Newcomer of the Year award was first presented in 2021.
List of Newcomer of the Year award recipients :
| Year | Recipient | Principal project | Rationale |
| 2021 | Carma Citrawati | WikiPustaka | First starting to edit the Balinese version of Wikipedia in 2019, Citrawati was instrumental in the development of a Balinese version of Wikisource called WikiPustaka through her valiant efforts to lead a team responsible for digitizing and translating ancient Balinese writings which were originally written on palm leaves. |
| 2022 | Nkem Osuigwe | | With an account that started in 2019, Dr. Nkem Osuigwe helped to start a partnership with the African Library and Information Associations & Institutions in 2020, working with an existing professional network to generate over 27,000 edits and counting. |
| 2023 | Eugene Ormandy | Japanese Wikipedia | Ormandy created two Wikimedia user groups: Student Wikipedian Community in Waseda University Tokyo and the Toumon Wikipedian Club Japan. He is the first award recipient from Japan. |
| 2024 | Wayuu community (Leonardi Fernández) | Wayuu Wikipedia | The Wayuu are an indigenous group of the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia and Venezuela. Fernández helped establish the Wikimedistas Wayúu (Wayuu Wikimedians) user group and the Wayuu-language Wikipedia in 2023. |

### Wikimedia Laureate (formerly 20th Year Honouree)

The 20th Year Honouree award was first presented in 2021. In 2022, the award was renamed Wikimedia Laureate.
List of award recipients :
| Year | Recipient | Principal project | Rationale |
| 2021 | Lodewijk Gelauff | Wiki Loves Monuments | Gelauff is a prolific contributor, a mentor to many Wikimedians, and a volunteer for many community groups and efforts. He is one of the initiators of Wiki Loves Monuments, the annual Wikipedia photo contest around cultural heritage, and has led this project for a decade. |
| 2022 | Andrew Lih | | Lih is an internationally renowned Wikipedia expert, author, professor, GLAMs activist, and long-time Wikimedia contributor. His work has inspired individuals and groups in the Wikimedia movement, especially in North America and the ESEAP region. |
| 2022 | Deror Lin | Hebrew Wikipedia, Wikimania | Lin was a prolific contributor going back to the founding of Wikipedia. He wrote over 2 percent of the entire Hebrew Wikipedia. He participated in many 100wikidays challenges, particularly for Hebrew Wikipedia, and contributed thousands of images. He was also a key organizer of multiple Wikimanias. |
| 2023 | Siobhan Leachman | WikiProject New Zealand | Leachman has improved content about New Zealand biodiversity and notable women on Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons. |
| 2024 | Martin (DerHexer) | | DerHexer is the longest-serving Wikimedia steward, becoming one in 2007; he is also an administrator of English Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki, and Wikimedia Commons. |

### Tech Contributor of the Year (formerly Tech Innovator)

The Tech Innovator award was first presented in 2021. The honor was renamed Tech Contributor of the Year in 2022.
List of award recipients :
| Year | Image | Recipient | Principal project | Rationale |
| 2021 | | Jay Prakash | Software development and support | Prakash has contributed to various technical projects within Wikipedia, from providing tech support via Indic-TechCom to developing IndicOCR, a tool extending the capabilities of GoogleOCR for several Indic languages. Jimmy Wales says, "Jay’s significant contributions have helped improve MediaWiki, the foundational software that underpins all of the projects. In addition to his technical achievements, he is a strong advocate for the technical community and epitomizes the generosity and collaborative nature of our movement." |
| 2022 | | Taavi Väänänen | Wikimedia Cloud Services, CentralAuth MediaWiki extension | Väänänen has been a critical volunteer contributor to Wikimedia Cloud Services, including Toolforge and Cloud VPS, key pieces of infrastructure that let community members host their Wikimedia-related bots, tools, and other software projects. He also helps maintain the CentralAuth MediaWiki extension, which allows users to use a single user account on all public Wikimedia sites. |
| 2023 | — | Zabe | Wikimedia infrastructure | Zabe is recognized for "helping with deployments, bug fixes, and incidents in general, and, in particular, ... for maintaining Checkuser and CentralAuth codes, for supporting the comment database refactor migration revision, and for the technical work behind creating new wikis." |
| 2024 | — | Siddharth VP | MediaWiki and draft submission interface | Siddharth has contributed to Twinkle, an editor tool, and MediaWiki, the database software which Wikipedia relies on. In addition, he has developed his own user scripts and bots. He is most proud of his work on the draft submission interface. |

### Media Contributor of the Year (formerly Rich Media)

The Rich Media award was first presented in 2021. The honor was renamed Media Contributor of the Year in 2022.
List of Rich Media award recipients :
| Year | Recipient | Principal project | Rationale |
| 2021 | Ananya Mondal | Wikimedia Commons | Mondal launched the Wiki Loves Butterfly project in 2016. |
| 2022 | Annie Rauwerda | Depths of Wikipedia | Rauwerda uses creative means on social media to spread the word about Wikimedia projects and communities that power them. She started the Depths of Wikipedia account that has now more than 1.5 million followers across Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. |
| 2023 | Pax Ahimsa Gethen | English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons | Gethen uploads photographs to Wikimedia Commons, focused on LGBTQ culture, and is an active participant at English Wikipedia's WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies. |
| 2024 | Yılmaz Caner Özyayıkçı | Turkish Wikipedia | Özyayıkçı helps design graphics for several Wikimedia conferences. He is also a co-founder of Wikimedia Japan-Türkiye Friendship. |

### Wikimedia Affiliate Spotlight

The Wikimedia Affiliate Spotlight was first presented in 2022. Art+Feminism and Wikimedia UK were recognized by the Wikimedia Affiliation Committee (AffCom) in the Partnerships and Governance categories, respectively.

### Functionary of the Year

The Functionary of the Year award was first presented in 2024, to recognize Wikimedians who work behind the scenes to "ensure the safety, smooth operation, and sustainability of Wikimedia projects".
List of Functionary of the Year award recipients :
| Year | Image | Recipient | Principal project | Rationale | Ref. |
| 2024 | | Vira Motorko | Ukrainian Wikipedia | Motorko is an administrator of the Ukrainian Wikipedia, where she helps with minor tasks, such as translating the interface and formatting pages. | |