Video summary
Every impactful edit relies on the tools and volunteers who build them, a tradition celebrated for six years through awards that highlight innovations in sharing knowledge. This year's Coolest Tool Awards honor projects that make open data more accessible and enable smoother workflows within communities dedicated to open access. Among these honorees is Paulina, a standout tool recognized as the winner for Most Innovative Tool, which transforms the often complex task of navigating Wikimedia data into an engaging and human experience. By bridging gaps between languages, licenses, and linked data, Paulina allows users to explore authors, works, and public domain materials across Wikidata and Commons without needing complex technical queries.
Developed by Jorge G and the Wikimedistas de Uruguay team during the 2025 Hackathon, Paulina features a clean multilingual interface that brings open data to life with rich visualizations and intuitive filters. The tool simplifies the process of discovering who created a specific work, determining its public domain status in various countries like the US or Uruguay, and identifying other creations by the same author. Rather than just functioning as a search engine, Paulina invites users into a living library where they can uncover the stories behind the data and the people behind the works, effectively turning a technical search into a journey of cultural storytelling.
The user experience is designed to be seamless and free from barriers such as login requirements or paywalls, encouraging exploration through six distinct steps. Users can search by author, work, or concept to reveal detailed profiles including lifespans, nationalities, and licensing information, or dive deeper into the connections between different creators. Advanced features allow for filtering works by their public domain status globally or regionally, which is essential for archivists and educators, while data visualization charts offer a bird's-eye view of copyright durations and cultural representation gaps across nations. Additionally, the platform supports multiple languages seamlessly, ensuring that users can switch between Spanish, French, and others effortlessly to access information in their preferred language.
In conclusion, Paulina stands as a testament to how volunteer-driven development can enhance the way humanity shares and understands its collective knowledge. By making it easier to navigate the vast ecosystem of Wikimedia projects, the tool empowers communities to thrive on shared insight and ensures that cultural history remains accessible to all. The award ceremony extended special thanks to the Award Academy for their guidance in selecting winners and acknowledged the contributions of various team members who helped assess nominations. As we celebrate this achievement, there is a clear expectation that such innovative tools will continue to emerge next year, further expanding the reach and impact of open knowledge initiatives worldwide.
Read the full video transcript
Every impactful edit owes something to a
tool and to someone who built it. For 6
years, we've celebrated the volunteers
behind the tools that shape how we share
knowledge, like Citation Hunt, which
helps editors quickly find unsourced
claims to improve accuracy, or Tool
Forge, which powers bots and web tools
that support everything from
translations to data visualization. And
this year, we're celebrating more tools
that bring knowledge to more hands,
enabling smoother workflows, smarter
edits, and communities that thrive on
open access and shared insight.
>> [music]
>> As knowledge reaches more hands, so
should the spotlight. In that spirit, we
welcome you to the sixth Coolest Tool
Awards.
Culture lives through stories, but
finding those stories across Wikimedia
can feel like solving a puzzle of
languages, [music] licenses, and linked
data.
Paulina changes that. Winner of the
Coolest Tool Award for Most Innovative
[music]
Tool, Paulina dares to make open data
feel alive.
With a clean multilingual interface, it
lets you explore authors, [music]
works, and the public domain across
Wikidata, Commons, and more
>> [music]
>> without needing complex queries.
Want to know who created a work? Whether
it's in the public domain? What else
that author wrote? [music] Paulina
answers beautifully. Created by Jorge G
and Wikimedistas [music]
de Uruguay, the tool grew at the 2025
Hackathon with filters, [music]
redesigned pages, and rich
visualizations, making exploration not
just easier, but more human.
Paulina doesn't just search data.
>> [music]
>> It invites you into a living library for
the stories behind the data, for the
people behind the works. That's Paulina.
Let's walk through [music] how it works.
Step one, visit the site.
Head to paulina.toolforge.org.
No login, no paywall, no fuss. It's free
and open to all, the way the [music]
internet used to feel.
Step two, search by author, work, or
concept. At the top, type in an author,
[music]
a work, or even a vague concept. Try
Rabindranath Tagore or the Odyssey, or
go full Beyonce meets Borges [music] and
search for something unexpected.
Step three, view results. Click on an
author to unlock their creative
footprint and you'll see [music] their
major works, lifespan, nationality, and
where their work is free to use.
Click on a work to reveal its license,
themes, digital versions, and the web
[music] of connections it shares with
other creators. This is like falling
down a literary rabbit hole, [music] but
with a map.
Whether you're following the thread of a
single poem or exploring the universe
around a novelist, [music] Paulina turns
search into cultural storytelling.
Step four, check public domain filters.
[music] Use the filters to check whether
a work is in the public domain, whether
that's the US, Uruguay, or globally.
This is essential for archivists,
educators, and anyone working with
digital reuse. Step five, explore
through data. Click on the countries tab
to see [music] charts showing the
duration of copyright in each country,
authors by nationality, and more. This
gives you a bird's eye view of how
cultural history is represented and
where there are gaps. Step six, change
language. Need to work in Spanish,
French, [music] or another language?
Just switch using the menu at the top.
Paulina supports [music] multiple
languages seamlessly.
That's Paulina. Go wild.
Congratulations to our winners and thank
you to everyone who nominated tools.
Special thanks [music] to the Award
Academy who helped assess the
nominations and guided us to selecting
these winners. Thank you Tom Arrow,
William Brown, Nat Hernandez Clavijo,
Sarai Sanchez, [music] Adam Shoreland,
and Marion Styles. We appreciate you all
very much. Please look forward to the
Coolest Tool Awards again next year.
>> [music]