Since 1992, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has presented awards to key leaders in the fight for freedom and innovation online. EFF’s annual EFF Awards (previously the Pioneer Award Ceremony) celebrates the longtime stalwarts working on behalf of technology users, both in the public eye and behind the scenes.
Past Winners
2023: Alexandra Asanovna Elbakyan, Library Freedom Project, Signal Foundation
2022: Alaa Abd El-Fattah; Digital Defense Fund; Kyle Wiens
2021: Kade Crockford, Pam Dixon, Matt Mitchell
2020: Joy Buolamwini, Dr. Timnit Gebru, Deborah Raji; Danielle Blunt; Open Technology Fund Community
2019: danah boyd, Oakland Privacy, William Gibson
2018: Stephanie Lenz, Joe McNamee, Sarah T. Roberts
2017: Annie Game, Mike Masnick, Chelsea Manning
2016: Malkia Cyril, Max Schrems, Keys Under Doormats, Senators Mark Leno and Joel Anderson
2015: Caspar Bowden, The Citizen Lab, Anriette Esterhuysen and the Association for Progressive Communications, and Kathy Sierra
2014: Trevor Paglen, Frank La Rue, Zoe Lofgren
2013: Aaron Swartz, James Love, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras
2012: Andrew (bunnie) Huang, Jérémie Zimmerman, The Tor project
2011: Ron Wyden, Ian Goldberg, and Nawaat.org
2010: Steven Aftergood, James Boyle, Pamela Jones and the Groklaw Website, and Hari Krishna Prasad Vemuru
2009: Limor "Ladyada" Fried, Harri Hursti, and Carl Malamud
2008: The Mozilla Foundation and its Chairman Mitchell Baker, Michael Geist, and Mark Klein
2007: Yochai Benkler, Cory Doctorow, and Bruce Schneier
2006: Craigslist, Gigi Sohn, and Jimmy Wales
2005: Mitch Kapor, Edward Felten, and Patrick Ball
2004: Kim Alexander, David Dill, and Aviel Rubin
2003: Amy Goodman, Eben Moglen, and David Sobel
2002: Jon Johansen and Writers of DeCSS, Dan Gillmor, and Beth Givens
2001: Bruce Ennis, Seth Finkelstein, and Stephanie Perrin
2000: "Librarians Everywhere", Tim Berners-Lee, and Phil Agre
1999: Jon Postel, Drazen Pantic, and Simon Davies
1998: Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Barbara Simons
1997: Hedy Lamarr, Johan Helsingius, and Marc Rotenberg
1996: Robert Metcalfe, Peter Neumann, and Shabbir Safdar and Matthew Blaze
1995: Philip Zimmermann, Anita Borg, and Willis Ware
1994: Ivan Sutherland, Bill Atkinson, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Lee Felsenstein, and the WELL
1993: Paul Baran, Vinton Cerf, Ward Christensen, and Dave Hughes and the USENET software developers
1992: Douglas C. Engelbart, Robert Kahn, Jim Warren, Tom Jennings, and Andrzej Smereczynski
