Meet the Wikimedians of the Year 2025

To make Wikipedia possible, it takes a global community of volunteer contributors, what we call the “Wikimedia community”, all donating their free time to expand and maintain the world’s largest-ever knowledge resource.

Today, we will take a little time to celebrate a few of these valued volunteers. The beloved Wikimedian of the Year awards give us an opportunity to pause, taking a moment to recognize people who make our mission possible: the silent changemakers, tireless contributors, and passionate volunteers whose efforts often happen behind the scenes but whose impact is felt across the world.

From people who have been entrusted with various powers to protect Wikimedia sites like Wikipedia, to mentors who give the bestow the gifts of knowledge and time, individuals who donate their visual artistry, organizers who painstakingly ensure events run smoothly, to so much more – join us in celebrating those who represent the very best of the Wikimedia movement. Their work should inspire all of us.

The Wikimedian of the Year: Robertsky

From a tiny edit in 2006 to tens of thousands of contributions, administrative rights on English Wikipedia, and a focus on building strong regional communities – today we celebrate the journey of Robert, our 2025 Wikimedian of The Year! Known for his kindness, dedication and willingness to help others, Robert embodies the spirit of the Wikimedia movement. 

He first registered a Wikipedia account back in 2006, making a simple fix to a broken link. It wasn’t until 2019 that he started editing seriously. In that time he has made over 79,000 edits, many of them focused on improving and expanding coverage of Singapore-related topics on English Wikipedia. In 2024, he became an administrator on English Wikipedia, a reflection of his thoughtful contributions and trusted presence in the community.

Robert has worked with fellow editors to raise the standard of Singapore-related content on Wikipedia, both by improving existing pages and writing new ones. One of his proudest achievements is maintaining the “Index of Singapore-related articles“, a valuable resource he rescued from neglect by creating a custom script to semi-automate its updates. Thanks to his technical initiative, the index remains active, accurate, and easy to use for editors interested in Singapore’s representation on Wikipedia.

In 2023, Robert helped launch the Wikimedians of Singapore User Group, organizing regular meetups to bring local editors together. He also serves on the ESEAP Hub Preparatory Council, collaborating on shaping the future of regional collaboration. And was one of the people who co-created the Wikimedia movement global conference, Wikimania, in Singapore in 2023. 

“Wikipedia is a go-to resource for many people. Knowledge is ever growing and Wikipedia content can quickly become outdated. But individually, there’s only so much that I can do. That’s why I also focus on regional and affiliate-level work, so that communities of editors and contributors can be nurtured and developed to help in sharing knowledge freely.”

The Wikimedia Laureate: Risker

Sometimes it starts with a typo. Sometimes it starts with James Blunt.

Meet our Wikimedia Laureate 2025: Risker! 

Back in 2005, a friend sent Risker a link to the Wikipedia article about James Blunt, knowing she liked his music. Risker immediately fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, a phenomenon that’s probably familiar to most readers of the encyclopedia: one article, another article, and before Risker knew it, she was many articles deep. Finally, after weeks of working up the courage, Risker made her first edit. It was a small typo fix. But with it, a whole new world opened up. 

“When I saw my change reflected immediately in the article, I felt incredibly empowered,” she says. “Wikipedia let me change the internet forever.”

That first edit turned into nearly two decades of work across English Wikipedia and the wider movement. She became an administrator, an Arbitration Committee member (twice!), oversighter, and checkuser on English Wikipedia. She helped shape policies, test and improve technical tools, stop vandals and bad actors, did numerous presentations and interviews about our mission. And on top of that, Risker has held many global roles that helped the global Wikimedia movement: serving on the Funds Dissemination Committee, engaging in the Movement Strategy work, supporting community communications, taking up advisory roles, and much more. She even created a “Risker’s checklist” for content-creation extensions that helps staff and volunteer developers address common risks early in the development process. 

When she is not editing, Risker is all about music: she has traveled across North America and Europe for live shows. She loves gardening, being outside, spending time with her family, and reading (a lot!). And while most of her Wikimedia work happens behind a screen, some of her favorite memories are from real-life meetups with fellow Wikimedians: sharing stories, meals, and even an occasional sunrise over Niagara Falls. 

“I am never, ever bored. The range of activities available is vast, so when I get tired of doing one thing, there’s always something else to move on to. I get to work with interesting people on interesting things. Plus, I can edit in my sweatpants, and between loads of laundry.”

Media Contributor of The Year: 1Veertje

86,000+ files uploaded. Her 7,500+ original works can be seen in over 4,000 locations across 134 language versions of Wikipedia.

This year’s Media Contributor of the Year has spent more than a decade documenting, organizing, and sharing images. Congratulations 1Veertje!

She joined Wikimedia movement in 2010, after seeing Jimmy Wales’ TED talk, which she thought described a perfect community to join.

Her photographs include everything from heritage sites across the Netherlands to portraits from events, particularly the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where she’s been a press-accredited photographer since 2015. Her work also includes graphics, videos, voice recordings, and digitized public domain materials. 

Among the contributions she’s proudest of is a photo of Hungarian director Judit Elek, a voice recording of filmmaker Mark Cousins, and a portrait of personal hero Naomi Klein. One of the most fun longtime projects is updating the list of Icelandic Trees of the Year—something born out of a Wikimania stopover in Reykjavik. 

Vera’s impact goes beyond the multimedia she creates. With programming skills and metadata know-how, she’s catalogued tens of thousands of images from other sources. She’s also a regular at the Wikimedia Hackathon, where she connects with other tech-minded Wikimedians to share tools and streamline workflows for Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata.

Outside of Wikimedia, she follows politics closely and recently became active in disability advocacy. She loves dancing to 80s and 90s music, reads a lot, and has a passion for learning new languages.

“It feels empowering to not just consume knowledge, but to file it away within a body of work that’s useful to so many people—even the silly stuff, like aptonyms. It’s incredibly satisfying to see how an article transforms with the addition of a photograph at the top. And by now, I know that my work will be seen—not just today, but for eons to come.”

Newcomer of the Year: Dadrik 

It started as it often starts: something was missing from Wikipedia, and adding it felt like the right thing to do. For our newcomer of the year, Konan N’Da N’Dri, also known as user Dadrik, first edits came from the need to update content about his university. Soon, he realized there were even more gaps to fill about his country, Côte d’Ivoire. So he started filling them.

I realized that by contributing, I could help build a shared body of knowledge, particularly about Côte d’Ivoire. What inspires me most is knowing that what I create today will be useful to others, even after I’m gone. My dream is that we can have a comprehensive (or widely covered) source of information about my country, he says. 

Since then, Dadrik has made over 19,000 edits across Wikimedia projects. On French Wikipedia, he not only improves and expands articles, but also reviews new contributions in his role as a patroller. He’s an active member of the Wikimedia Côte d’Ivoire community and regularly shares his knowledge as a Wikipedia trainer.

Outside of Wikipedia, Dadik’s passion is science – especially astrophysics, planets, the cosmos. His curiosity and commitment to knowledge reflect the very spirit of the Wikimedia movement.

Functionary of the Year: AramilFeraxa

Did you know… that the dedicated editor who updates the Polish Wikipedia’s “Did You Know” (Czy wiesz) column every single day is also a “steward”, a globally trusted editor given special rights to protect Wikimedia projects around the world?

We’re delighted to recognize AramilFeraxa as the 2025 Functionary of the Year!

It all began in 2020 with a small punctuation fix on a Stargate article, made through the Newcomer tasks in “Growth features.” Now to people who edit Polish Wikipedia, AramilFeraxa is known for many things: mentoring newcomers, fighting vandalism, serving as an administrator and checkuser, and for years now, curating the “Did You Know” column on the Main Page (by hand, every single day!) But his contributions reach far beyond his home wiki. 

As a Wikimedia steward, AramilFeraxa helps safeguard Wikimedia projects across languages and regions. Stewards use advanced tools to respond to cross-wiki abuse, support communities without local administrators, and handle sensitive tasks that keep the projects running smoothly. It’s work that often goes unseen, but is essential to the resilience of the Wikimedia projects. 

Outside of his steward and administrative work, AramilFeraxa also rewrote the Wikipedia articles about 16 different films, including all of the James Bond movies featuring Daniel Craig. All of them have been recognized for their quality by AramilFeraxa’s peers through their “featured” and “good” quality ratings. His motivation? “The idea that even small edits can help readers find accurate information”. 

Outside of Wikimedia, AramilFeraxa enjoys traveling. He is also a fan of music and theatre, and even performs in musical productions. In quieter moments, you’ll likely find him playing chess or enjoying a good movie. Maybe even the next one to be featured on Wikipedia?

“Watching articles evolve, witnessing how collaborative editing can improve content quality, and seeing how quickly information can be updated to reflect the world around us keeps me engaged. The sense of belonging to a global community that shares the mission of free knowledge is another motivator. Collaborating with others, participating in discussions, and sometimes even resolving disagreements constructively creates a meaningful connection to the movement.”

Tech contributor of the Year: Eugene233

How does one go from hearing about Wikimedia for the first time to mentoring over a thousand new technical contributors across a continent?

For Eugene233, our Tech Contributor of the Year 2025, the journey started in 2016. That year, he joined the Wikimedia community, and almost immediately helped organize a developer workshop to share what he was learning. 

Since then, Eugene has spent nearly a decade building the Wikimedia movement’s technical capacity across Africa and beyond. As a mentor with Wiki Mentor Africa, he played a key role in training, tool development and building a strong and more inclusive technical ecosystem. 

His impact is not just measured in code but in people – he mentored over 1,000 aspiring and seasoned Wikimedia tech contributors, helping to spark long-term involvement across Africa.

It takes a special sort of motivation to take on all of this work, and Eugene certainly has that. His late father- his biggest fan – used to ask him every month what he had contributed as a Wikimedian. “Everything you learn,” he told him, “never hesitate to help others learn.” That important (and so Wikimedian in spirit!) message continues to guide Eugene’s work today.

Outside Wikimedia, he enjoys soccer, singing and video games. He counts Wiki Indaba 2018 in Tunisia as a turning point: “I was in tears,” he said, remembering the moment when another volunteer gifted them a laptop. “I thought: Oh my God. This is really happening.”

Eugene has helped shape the future of Wikimedia tech—one tool, one training, one person at a time. 

“As a community, we need to find ways to build interest even more in underrepresented communities to gain more committed Wikimedians like the awesome people we already have.”

Honorable mention: Nitesh Gill

This year’s Honorable Mention celebrates a Wikimedian whose dedication is impossible to overlook: someone who writes, organizes, mentors, and leads with heart.

Congratulations, Nitesh!

Nitesh started editing in 2014 as a Bachelor student after her professor assigned her to edit Wikipedia for an assignment. At first, she thought it would be just more boring homework—but then she got curious, asked questions, and discovered a way to combine two things she cared about deeply: her language and sharing knowledge.

In 2017, she took on the #100wikidays challenge, where a person writes one Wikipedia article per day for 100 days. But when the 100 days passed, she didn’t stop—and she eventually reached500 days!

Over the years, Nitesh has become one of the most active contributors to Punjabi Wikipedia, and the only woman administrator on the project. She’s particularly proud of helping close the gender gap: Punjabi Wikipedia has now more articles about women than any other gender, and her writing played a big part in that. 

But it’s not just about writing. Nitesh also helped lead the Punjabi Wikimedians User Group, kept the community connected with regular online meetings during the pandemic, and supported new volunteers to grow and lead. 

When she is not editing, she relaxes by watching web series. She’s also a true dog lover: spending time with dogs and seeing how happy and playful they are always lifts her mood. Recently, she’s also been exploring the joy of travel, both solo and with family.

I am proud of the work I have done for the Punjabi language, especially in creating content about women’s personalities and women-related topics. Today, Punjabi Wikipedia has more content about women than any other gender, and I feel proud to have helped bridge that gap, which is a serious issue in the wider Wikimedia movement.

Honorable mention: Ammarpad

Ammarpad, our second honorable mention, is a long-time contributor to both English and Hausa Wikipedia. He’s also a tireless editor and software developer who has made hundreds of technical contributions to MediaWiki, and  an administrator on Hausa Wikipedia, where he supports developing the project’s content, structure, and policies.

He 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.

On Hausa Wikipedia, his native language, he has contributed both content and technical support: creating articles, developing templates and policies, and helping shape the project’s structure. He now serves as an administrator, where he focuses on supporting the growth and stability of the wiki. “I wanted to help fill that gap and make sure that people who speak Hausa could find information about important topics in their language just like the interesting indepth coverage on various topics that I found on the English version,” he says. 

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. 

“Wikimedia projects, particularly Wikipedia, have never been more important than now, when disinformation, conspiracies and outright false information on everything are awash on the internet. Wikipedia stands out as a global independent community that values neutrality, openness, learning, and collaboration to produce neutral and factual accounts of events in a way different from any other sources. That  inspires me to keep going.”