By Duncan Mboyah
Engineer Eugene Agbe, a Cameroonian-born computer engineer, is the winner of the 2025 Wikipedia’s Technology Contributor of the Year. He was recognized for spending nearly a decade training other African volunteers on how to make technical contributions to Wikipedia.
As a mentor with Wiki Mentor Africa, he plays a key role in training, tool development and building a strong and more inclusive space for volunteers to contribute to Wikipedia’s technology.
Agbe has mentored over 1,000 aspiring and seasoned Wikimedia tech contributors in the past decade and has helped spark long-term volunteer involvement across Africa.
Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder said that “Wikimedian of the Year” awards honor exceptional individuals and communities who have made significant contributions to Wikimedia projects.
Wales said that Egbe’s work has contributed to the development of tools such as WikiSpeech, an open-source text-to-speech tool to make Wikimedia projects more accessible for people who have difficulties reading.
Wales also said that the scientist is credited for developing the African German Phrasebook translation tool, a translation tool and WDLexAudio, a tool that matches audio files to support pronunciation of statements on Wikidata.
The award-winning Agbe is currently a technical consultant to the Igbo Wikimedians User Group.
The Wikimedian of the Year award winners are recognized across several categories, from new contributors to long-time volunteers, highlighting the diverse and vibrant community that makes the Wikimedia projects possible.
Winners of other categories included volunteers from Canada, India, Côte d’Ivoire, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, and Singapore who were also recognized for their efforts to make reliable knowledge available to people around the world.
Wikipedia is among the top ten most-read websites in the world, and the only one that is run by a non-profit, the Wikimedia Foundation. Nearly 260,000 volunteers create the information in over 300 languages on Wikipedia, which is viewed more than 15 billion times every month.
Through a process, the volunteers help to power the backbone of the internet with reliable information for all. Together, they compile and share information on notable subjects, according to Wikipedia’s editorial policies and guidelines.
Wikimania is the annual gathering bringing together Wikimedians around the world to connect, share new projects, and shape the future of Wikimedia projects.
