Kumu Wrapped: 2025
Showcasing the some of the most creative and most-visited projects from 2025
Kumu Wrapped: 2025
Showcasing the some of the most creative and most-visited projects from 2025
We know what you’re thinking: you’re doing an end of year post in April? It’s true. But, better later than never, because these projects deserve the spotlight!
Before we get even farther into 2026, we wanted to take a moment to share just a small bit of what the incredible people who use Kumu were up to last year.
We’ve broken it up into 7 sections:
- Crowd-Pleasers
- The “Let Me Show You” Awards
- The Iteration League
- Category Connoisseurs
- Prolific Energy
- Templates
- Language Breakdown
Without further adieu,
The Crowd-Pleasers
Projects that people loved
In the data visualization community, one of the biggest challenges we face is not just making something useful and clear out of complex data, but making it accessible and actually referenced. In 2025, projects from all sorts of sectors found success in this.
Raphaël Cannesant made the most viewed project, with over 30k views, which was part of a Radio France report on the universe of tech billionaire Xavier Niels. The visualization maps his imprint in the education, finance, real estate, media, tech, and telecom sectors.
Xavier Niel’s Tech Empire | Article/Podcast (it’s in French) | Kumu Project
Another project that had a lot of eyes on it last year was this causal loop diagram of the energy transition by James Hopeward, Richard Davis, Shannon O’Connor, and Peter Akiki. Their Global Renewable Energy and Sectoral Electrification model is designed to quickly explore trade-offs between energy security and climate goals, highlighting why the transition needs to be planned as an interconnected system rather than a set of isolated policies.
View the GREaSE model
We especially appreciate the research team’s commitment to transparency: the full paper is publicly available, and the model’s data and parameters are shared on GitHub so others can experiment with scenarios such as population growth, sector demand, and electrification rates.
The “Let Me Show You” Awards
These Explainers-in-Chief decided that class is in session
We were impressed with Maria Guta’s presentation for The Healthy Vets Community Project, with the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Through a variety of different visualizations, we are introduced to important stories about humane housing for veterans, including causal loop diagrams on the general housing landscape, veteran housing instability, and what supports exist. These are followed by an iceberg model of the humane housing landscape, and then an ecosystem map!
See the presentation
Across multiple element and connection types, Kumu power-user Gene Bellinger walks us through a systems-focused presentation that uses real-world examples and interactive models to examine how innovation, architecture, and AI connect.
View this project
The Iteration League
Some projects just kept evolving and getting better
These projects couldn’t keep still. They were refined, reworked, and revisited again and again.
1st Place:
- Revisions: 269
- This taxonomy-based mapping analysis identifies areas where the RDA (Research Data Alliance) effectively supports national Open Science policies. It also identifies places to strengthen the European research data landscape in the future.
- Iteration Champion: Connie Claire
2nd Place:
*Mesopelagic Actor Mapping 2025*
- Revisions: 264
- This is an interactive map that links countries and regional fisheries bodies to marine species and key treaties while overlaying IUU (illegal fishing) risk. It’s an amazing spotlight on the intersection of ocean governance and ecosystem stakes. The help button on the top right is super innovative!
- Map Whisperer: Albrecht Anton
Category Connoisseurs
These data visualization gurus had a classification for everything
Kumu was built to help the disruptors of this world navigate complexity. So we wanted to call out projects that most certainly did not shy away from complexity, in terms of how many different element types they used!
Leading the pack with–*read-it–*95 element types–was creator Bernise, whose stakeholder project Regen A1 takes on a big sustainability ecosystem across Southeast Asia.
A lot of projects in 2025 mapped out character relationships in series, books, and games. Multiverse-Mapper Adan Jimenez led the way this year when he decided to build not one canon, not two, but overlay 16 manga–anime series! This project, called Models • Senshu Kashu, stacked every layer of the sports anime–manga cake, linking athletes, teams, and leagues across a fandom multiverse.
Everything Moving Together: With 19 element types in play, Master-of-Moving-Parts Albanyau mapped Africa’s food system as a coordinated whole. The project shows how farming practices, supply chains, finance, evidence, and emissions must shift together, and how pressures like population growth and urbanization ripple through food security, climate outcomes, and livelihoods.
Finally, created by a master *keeper-of-the-categories* Sebastian Brown, this Peace Education Resource Web said “yes” to nuance across 17 element types. It charts peace education across topics, audiences, formats, and scales, all in one richly categorized resource web.
Prolific Energy
The people who just couldn’t stop creating
Some people took Kumu’s data viz capabilities and RAN WITH THEM: here’s a cool look at project creations since Kumu’s inception. (Some power users might not show up because they’ve created projects across multiple usernames).
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What templates are used the most?
Templates are custom settings Kumunity members choose before kicking off a project. Often, these are just a starting point, and they get modified significantly, but it is still interesting to see what are the most commonly used ones!
[embed]
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Here’s some examples of the templates in action:
Geo/Custom Templates: Weaving for Change
A public social system map to support people connected with The Weaving Lab, Fito Network, and Greaterthan, created by Kumu user weaving.
Stakeholder Template: Mendocino County Ecosystem of Care
Creator SimpleNotEasy’s stakeholder map of those caring for people across Mendocino County, California.
Radar Template: AOK System Actor Map — Adams
- Katherine Lane created this radar-based system map to show how organizations and services connect to support young children and families in Adams County.
Big Data Template: legumES Network Map
This map visualizes EU-funded research and initiatives focused on legumes, agroecology, ecosystem services, nature-based solutions, and regenerative agriculture (Creator: legumes).
Systems Leverage Template: ADVICE Recommendations
A project aimed at helping different stakeholders within the higher education system, such as decision-makers, teachers, and students, to enhance the individual and institutional capacities for digital education (Creator: Krzystof).
Custom Template: Southeast Europe mapping
- The Clingendael Institute made this Western Balkans Geopolitics map with a creative use of image underlays!
Language Breakdown
The large majority of projects (around 87%) in 2025 were in English, and of those that weren’t, we estimate the following percentages:
[embed]
Here’s an example from each of these languages:
Spanish: Gigamapa 2.0
This radar-style systems map by creator ivanpiineiro shows ecological, cultural, and socio-economic dynamics across local to regional scales in rural Mexico.
French: Arbre de compétences SkillQuest
- An interactive skill tree by creator Apex visualizes UniLaSalle’s courses, competencies, and XP pathways across digital and technical domains.
Portuguese: Ecossistema Instituto Caldeira
A network map of Instituto Caldeira’s innovation ecosystem in Porto Alegre, showing how startups, partners, and institutions are connected.
German: Circular Gastro Navigator 1.0 — München
The first network map of suppliers, customers, and solutions for zero-waste and circular gastronomy in Munich. Made by creator LinaFOODturo, it provides initial starting points to support the first steps towards zero-waste or circular gastronomy.
Dutch: Het obesogene systeem in lage inkomenswijken
A Dutch causal loop diagram by creator FleurtEllen96 modeling the obesogenic system in low-income neighborhoods, showing how social, behavioral, and environmental factors reinforce one another.
Italian: Geopolitica — Mondo
Creator Transmedialibrary made this carefully curated visual library of films, documentaries, books, articles, podcasts, and archives that explore global geopolitics — covering borders, conflicts, power struggles, protests, and contested territories around the world.
Russian: Tabletop RPG Sessions and Participation Network
A network map by creator PesNasos of a tabletop RPG community showing how players participate in different game sessions, revealing core members, repeat play, and sub-communities by game type and format.
Indonesian: Analisis dan Pemetaan Proyek Strategis Nasional
An interactive map by creator Riset monitoring Indonesia’s National Strategic Projects (PSN) by type, location, regulation, and status.
Chinese: Rural Development
This causal systems map of rural community development, made by creator Koimpact , links wellbeing, organizations, environment, and local economy.
Ukrainian: The influence of Ukrainian lawyer Portnov
PangeaDesign made this investigative map showing documented judicial influence networks
ReImagined-Futures built this systems map showing the forces that help or hinder the ecological, social, and economic revitalization and resilience of rural areas in Catalonia.
Turkish: Türkiye’de Yerel Çeviri Piyasasında İşlerin Dolaşımı
A conceptual network map by creator kemalistil illustrates how translation work circulates within Turkey’s local translation market, based on the creator’s personal research and professional experience.
Vietnamese: hoa trong mắt bão
A fan-made relationship map of Chị Đẹp Đạp Gió 2024 contestants, made by bnetzf, uses cultural archetypes to explore emotional and social ties.
Polish: Farfocel
Creator Turrsky built this role-mapping exercise, visualizing social interactions between archetypal roles (e.g. secretary, cleaner, farmer), that uses color-coded relationships such as sympathy, antipathy, romance, and interest.
Well, if you’ve come this far, you must love data viz as much as we do. We hope you’ve enjoyed exploring the creativity, brains, and heart behind some of the incredible Kumu projects that were created this year.
You can also take a look at projects already being showcased at our current “Projects in the Wild” Database!
If you’d like to, feel free to connect with our “Kumunity” and find other project showcases on the social channels of your preference:
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