Wikimania 2026: The joy of contributing 

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The final day of Wikimania Paris was a celebration of many things – friendships, the exchange of ideas, and most of all, the joy of contributing.

The joy of contributing is what brings many Wikimedians into the movement and keeps them here. At this year’s Wikimania there is someone here who first attended Wikimania in 2005 as a 6-month-old baby with their mother. Twenty-one years later they are here participating in the Team Challenges and volunteering to help out at the event.

Over the last few days more than 1250 Wikimedians have come together in person and almost 2000 online to join Wikimania 2026. Two-thirds of in-person attendees were from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Eastern Europe.


Giant Wikipedia Puzzle

To celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday, Wikimania 2026 attendees (and Baby Globe) built one of the largest jigsaw puzzles ever assembled in France. The puzzle represents our global movement: over 300 languages, hundreds of thousands of editors, and millions of readers.  

Audience votes matter!

Both in-person and online attendees were asked to vote for “The Coolest Projects” of the last 25 years. The contest celebrating creativity in the Wikimedia community was revived in memory of its founder, Deror Lin.

After several rounds of spirited applause, jazz hands, and emoji voting, the three finalists were SheSaid, Internet ArchiveBot, and Women in Red. While the competition was stiff, the final winner was Women in Red. Congratulations to Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight (User:Rosiestep) and the international Women in Red network across multiple projects.

Prize winners for tools and Team Challenges

The three winners of the 2026 Coolest Tool Awards honoring developers were:

The first-ever Wikimania Team Challenges brought together experts from diverse backgrounds with different skillsets with participants in this year’s Hackathon. 

  • Athena Prize (for the strong central project): LexiMap
  • The Calafia Prize (for the most promising project): Map the Gap
  • Saraswati Prize (for the most original project): The WikiBias Analyzer
  • The Nzinga Prize (for best teamwork): Query Reuser
  • Mafalda Prize (people’s choice awards): Welcome Wiki

Instead of developing a tool, the Welcome Wiki team surveyed new editors about their experience and suggested improvements to the user interface and newcomer experience.

As we bring Day 4 to a close, we would like to thank everyone who brought joy, empathy, and commitment to free knowledge to Wikimania 2026. Enjoy the sounds of the WikiChoir and the WikiOrchestra singing “Oh, Wikipédia!”

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