Skip to main content

Community Awards

CNCF Community Awards will reward the community members, developers and advocates working hardest to advance cloud native.

We traditionally have the following awards, rewarded at different times of each calendar year:

  • Top Ambassador: A champion for the cloud native space, this individual helps spread awareness of the CNCF and its projects. The CNCF Ambassador leverages multiple platforms, both online as well as speaking engagements, driving interest and excitement around the ecosystem.
  • Top Committer: This award recognizes excellence in technical contributions to CNCF and its hosted projects. The CNCF Top Committer has made key commits to projects and, more importantly, contributes in a way that benefits the project as a whole.
  • Top End User: The special award for the CNCF End User Community representatives in recognition of major contributions to the cloud native ecosystem. All end users can be nominated, but end user members can not win two consecutive years in a row.
  • Lorem Ipsum (Previously Top Documentarian, since 2021): This award recognizes excellence in documentation contributions to CNCF and its projects. Excellent technical documentation is one of the best ways projects can lower the barrier to contribution.
  • Chop Wood Carry Water Award: This award is given to community members helping behind the scenes, dedicating countless hours to open source projects, hosting and building community meetups, and often completing thankless tasks for the benefit of the community.
  • The TAGGIE: This award is presented to the person who has done the most to advance CNCF’s Technical Advisory Groups (TAGs). TAGs scale contributions by the CNCF technical and user community, while retaining integrity and increasing quality in support of CNCF’s mission of making cloud native ubiquitous.
  • Small but Mighty: This award recognizes the company or organization in the community with the largest impact. CNCF is made up of hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations, each providing valuable contributions, but this award is presented to an organization punching above its weight.

Table of contents​

Awarded​

2026​

2026 Top End User​

2026 Outstanding Mentor​

2026 The TAGGIE​

2025​

2025 Top End Users​

2025 Lifetime Achievement​

Dawn Chen (dchen1107) Kevin Wang (kevin-wangzefeng)

2025 Top Committer​

John Howard (howardjohn)

2025 Lorem Ipsum (Previously Top Documentarian)​

2025 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2025 The TAGGIE​

2025 Outstanding Mentor​

Lee Calcote (leecalcote)

2024​

2024 Top End User​

2024 Lifetime Achievement​

Tim Hockin (thockin)

2024 Top Committer​

Joe Stringer (joestringer)

2024 Top Documentarian​

2024 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2024 The TAGGIE​

Nancy Chauhan (Nancy-Chauhan)

2024 Lift and Shift​

2023​

2023 Top End User​

2023 Top Committer​

2023 Top Documentarian​

2023 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2023 The TAGGIE​

2023 Small but Mighty​

2022​

2022 Top End User​

2022 Top Committer​

2022 Top Documentarian​

2022 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2021​

2021 Top End User​

2021 Top Ambassador​

2021 Top Committer​

2021 Top Documentarian​

2021 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2020​

2020 Top End User​

2020 Top Committer​

2020 Top Ambassador​

2020 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2019​

2019 Top Ambassador​

2019 Top Committer​

2019 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2019 Top End User​

2018​

2018 Top Ambassador​

2018 Top Committer​

2018 Chop Wood Carry Water​

2018 Top End User​

2017​

2017 Top Ambassador​

2017 Top Committer​

2017 Chop Wood Carry Water Award​

2016​

2016 Top Ambassador​

2016 Top Committer​