Coolest Tool Award
Wiki communities around the globe have diverse use cases and technical needs. Volunteer developers are often the first to find and address those use cases. They experiment with new ideas, build local and global solutions and enhance the experience in our software.
There are incredibly many great tools out there.
It’s time to celebrate this!
Coolest Tool Award 2024
The fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award returns with an in-person event for the first time since 2019! The winners will be announced at Wikimania 2024.
The call for nominations is now closed. Thank you very much for your ideas & recommendation(s)!
The award is organized & selected by the Coolest Tool Academy. Members of the 2024 edition are: Gbemisola Esho, Joris Quarshie, Doğu Abaris, Tricia Burmeister, Mike Peel, Will Kent, Leon Ziemba, Tamsin Braisher, Seyram Komla Sapaty, Onyinyechi Onifade, and Deb Tankersley
2024 Winners
The Coolest Tool Award winners were announced on August 10, 2024, during the closing ceremony of Wikimania Katowice!
- Video recording of presentation
- Slide deck – as presented at Wikimania with 2 embedded videos and speaker notes
- Full slide deck with all videos embedded, also containing speaker notes
| Winner | Videos 🎥 | Category | Category description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web2Cit | 🎥 | Quality | Tools to improve content quality |
| Cat-a-lot | 🎥 | Editor | Tools that augment editing |
| InteGraality | 🎥 | Experience | Intuitive and easy to use |
| Wikidata Walkabout | 🎥 | Tiny | Small tools and tools that do one thing well |
| View It! | 🎥 | Newcomer | New tools or tools by new developers |
| ISA Tool | 🎥 | Eggbeater | Tools in use for more than 10 years |
| CampWiz | 🎥 | Honorable mention |
How does it work?
Coolest Tool Academy
The award is organized & selected by the Coolest Tool Academy. This group is selected with a variety of criteria ensuring continuity (up to 2 spots from previous years), previous year winners, mix of editors / developers / Wikimedia Foundation staff, mix of geography and languages. This is done to minimize bias. Folks who are interested in organizing the Coolest Tool Award in the next edition are invited to reach out to us. :-)
Nomination process
The nomination process is open for 3-4 weeks, to give time for people to submit nominations for their favorite tools.
You can nominate multiple tools and are encouraged to do so! The more the merrier, the Academy needs your help getting to know all the cool tools in the ecosystem.
What is a tool?
A tool is a piece of software in the Wikimedia ecosystem that is useful from your perspective. Some examples of tools are: gadgets, MediaWiki extensions, websites and web services, APIs, mobile applications, desktop applications, bots, PAWS notebooks, user scripts, etc.
The most important thing is to highlight the work of the technical community, no matter what shape or form the tool takes :-)
Selection process
After the nomination process finishes, the Academy gets together to discuss the entries and selection process, then they individually review the nominated tools, and finally there is a last meeting where the Academy reconvenes and discusses the nominations to finally assign the awards in a variety of categories.
Award ceremony
The awarded projects are announced in a dedicated award ceremony. Depending on the situation either co-located with an existing movement event, or if it is not possible, in a virtual event.
Previous editions
See a full list of winners from all years at: Coolest Tool Award/Full history.