People make Wikipedia great.

Whether it’s writing whole articles, correcting tiny typos, making small donations or just using Wikipedia for research, millions of people around the world unite around the goals of the world’s largest online information compendium, making free knowledge available to anyone in the world.

The people behind the Wikimedia projects come from many cultures, have many backgrounds, but share that one, simple mission.

Here are just some of the tens of thousands of editors, across hundreds of languages, who take pride in developing Wikimedia projects and helping guide others in doing the same.

Lionel Allorge

Joined Wikipedia in 2006

Lionel is a photographer and programmer from France who releases his photography under free licenses to Wikimedia Commons.

Read Lionel’s story ›

Ziyad Alsufyani

Joined Wikipedia in 2009

Ziyad is a medical student at Taif University in Ta’if, Saudi Arabia. He’s been editing Arabic Wikipedia since 2009 and remains committed to public knowledge.

Read Ziyad’s story ›

Alice Backer

Joined Wikipedia in 2014

Alice encourages people to edit Wikipedia to help address biases and gaps in coverage on topics relating to people of African descent.

Read Alice’s story ›

Victoriano de la Cruz

Joined Wikipedia in 2015

Victoriano is a linguist studying at the University of Warsaw in Poland. As a Wikipedian, he champions Nahuatl’s continued importance by sharing free knowledge in this and other native languages.

Read Victoriano’s story ›

Darya Ganor

Joined Wikipedia in 2013

As a librarian and Wikipedian-in-residence at the National Library of Israel, Darya Ganor spends her days helping people locate the resources they need through Wikipedia.

Read Darya’s story ›

Virginia Gentilini

Joined Wikipedia in 2007

Virginia is an Italian librarian and fashion enthusiast. She is responsible for GLAM project coordination at Wikimedia Italy and works with museums, universities and other art organizations to increase awareness of Italian fashion history.

Read Virginia’s story ›

The Goodall Family

The Goodall family members are globetrotters. The family has been chronicling their adventures on their website, and say that using Wikipedia has been an integral part of their journey.

Read the Goodall Family’s story ›

Kitamura Sae

Joined Wikipedia in 2010

In Dr Kitamura Sae’s Tokyo classroom, Wikipedia is not just read, it is written. As part of their university coursework, Sae’s students regularly make contributions to Japanese Wikipedia.

Read Kitamura’s story ›

Emna Mizouni

Joined Wikipedia in 2013

Emna works for Carthagina, a non-governmental organization in Tunis that raises awareness about Tunisian history and heritage. She helps make images of Tunisia available to the public on Wikimedia Commons.

Read Emna’s story ›

Susanna Mkrtchyan

Joined Wikipedia in 2010

Susanna is a professor in the field of database and system research. She uses Wikipedia to give Armenian students the same educational opportunities as students who live in the United States.

Read Susanna’s story ›

Museo Soumaya

The Museo Soumaya is the most visited museum in Mexico City. It is also the site of the longest continuous Wikimedia edit-a-thon ever recorded.

Read Museo Soumaya’s story ›

NASA EVA Team

NASA engineers James Montalvo, Daren Welsh, and Scott Wray work directly on spacewalks, or extravehicular activities (EVAs). The MediaWiki development used by the EVA team at NASA resembles Wikipedia quite strongly.

Read NASA’s story ›

Ahmed Nisar

Joined Wikipedia in 2009

Ahmed celebrates the close connection between many languages and cultures in India, an intimacy reflected in the cooperation between Wiki projects in Hindi and Urdu.

Read Ahmed’s story ›

Chorobek Saadanbekov

Joined Wikipedia in 2010

Historian and activist Chorobek Saadanbekov has been writing Kyrgyz into Wikipedia as a way to preserve the language for the future.

Read Chorobek’s story ›

Paulina Sanchez

Joined Wikipedia in 2014

For Paulina, Wikipedia is all about community. She started out by joining editatonas—women-only editing events—and now runs workshops and contributes and improves articles on films, literature, women biologists, and Chicana feminism.

Read Paulina’s story ›

Bobby Shabangu

Joined Wikipedia in 2011

Bobby Shabangu first discovered Wikipedia while gathering information for shows he produced at a Swati radio station.

Read Bobby’s story ›

Wikimedia Foundation

Joined Wikipedia in 2003

The Wikimedia Foundation provides support for Wikipedia and other projects, and works to create or improve access to information around the world.

Read the Wikimedia Foundation’s story ›