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 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 YearImage Recipient Principal project Rationale 2011Kazakh WikipediaKenzhekhanuly 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, and stated on Reddit in 2015 that he had been unaware of Kenzhekhanuly's prior positions in the Kazakh government. Wales also said that he would have "refused to give that award" had he known of Kenzhekhanuly's future deputy governorship.2012Yoruba Wikipedia"Demmy" created a bot to translate 15,000 short English articles into Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria.2013French WikipediaMathis, a chairman of Wikimédia France and a French Wikipedia administrator, received the honor for his role in the controversy surrounding the French article about the Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station.2014Ukrainian WikipediaKostenko, 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.2015scope=row Wikimedia CommonsWales named an anonymous Venezuelan editor . He said that he wished to reveal their identity in the future without endangering them. 2016English WikipediaThe 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, with many 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.English Wikipedia2017English WikipediaNartey received the award for his addition of content about his home country, Ghana, and his leadership of several initiatives to promote participation on 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 had been critical in building up local communities in Africa.2018Tatar WikipediaFatkullin 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.2019Arabic WikipediaIn 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 English WikipediaTei contributed actively to Wikipedia articles about the COVID-19 pandemic's impact in Ghana. 2021 Arabic WikipediaNajjar 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.2022Spanish WikipediaParedes 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.2023Taufik RosmanWikidata, Malay WiktionaryTaufik 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.2024Hannah 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 21.2025Robert SimEnglish Wikipedia Sim focuses on improving Singapore-related content on Wikipedia and helped launch the Wikimedians of Singapore user group in 2023. That year, he also helped coordinate Wikimania 2023 in Singapore.2026Jules XénardFrench WikipediaJules Xénard, also known as Jules*, for his contributions on sensitive topics such as global warming and his actions against promotional content and disinformation.
Honorable mentions +List of Wikimedian of the Year honorable mentions YearImage Recipient Principal project Rationale 2015Susanna MkrtchyanArmenian WikipediaMkrtchyan 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.Satdeep GillPunjabi 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.2016MardetanhaPersian WikipediaMardetanha 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.Vassia AtanassovaBulgarian WikipediaAtanassova 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 a third of the editors have completed it.2017Diego GómezColombian student who was prosecuted for copyright violation after having shared an academic paper online. He was later acquitted.2018Nahid SultanBangla WikipediaSultan is an active member of Wikimedia Bangladesh.Jess WadeEnglish WikipediaWade 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.2021Netha HussainEnglish Wikipedia, Malayalam WikipediaHussain 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.Carmen AlcázarSpanish Wikipedia Alcázar was recognized for her work to reduce the gender gap on Spanish Wikipedia.2022Anna TorresSpanish WikipediaTorres 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. 2023Anton ProtsiukUkrainian WikipediaProtsiuk is the Programmes Coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine.2024Gu Eun-aeKorean WikipediaGu is the director of Wikimedia Korea, which she helped found. 2025Nitesh GillPunjabi Wikipedia (Eastern)Nitesh began editing in 2014 and has been a key contributor to Punjabi Wikipedia ever since. She took on the #100wikidays challenge in 2017, kept going past 100, and reached 500 days. Her work has been central to closing the gender gap—Punjabi Wikipedia now has more articles about women than any other gender, thanks in large part to her.AmmarpadHausa WikipediaHe first joined the Wikimedia community in 2015 via the English Wikipedia, where he wrote articles (especially biographies) about Nigeria. As he gained experience, he focused on improving the quality of Nigerian-related content across a range of topics. He is the co-founder and led the Wikimedia Hausa. He was a Project Manager for the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos campaign in 2022 and 2023.
Beyond editing, Ammarpad has worked for about five years on supporting the software that powers all Wikimedia projects: MediaWiki. He has made more than 900 software changes and reviewed hundreds of others.2026Hijiri UmemotoJapanese WikipediaMari AvetisyanArmenian Wikipedia
Newcomer of the Year The Newcomer of the Year award was first presented in 2021.
+List of Newcomer of the Year award recipients YearImage Recipient Principal project Rationale 2021Carma CitrawatiWikiPustaka 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.2022Nkem OsuigweWith 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. 2023Eugene OrmandyJapanese WikipediaOrmandy 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.2024Wayuu community(Leonardi Fernández)Wayuu WikipediaThe Wayuu are an indigenous group of the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia and Venezuela. Fernández helped establish the (Wayuu Wikimedians) user group and the Wayuu-language Wikipedia in 2023.2025 Konan N’Da N’Dri (User:Dadrik)French WikipediaAn active member of Wikimedia Côte d’Ivoire, Dadrik contributes to French Wikipedia as a patroller and shares his passion for astrophysics as a trainer.
Wikimedia Laureate (formerly 20th Year Honouree)