Meet the 2026 Pathfinder Award winners

Our community achieved a lot this past year. More than 7,500 new members joined us, almost 590,000 courses were completed at Automation Anywhere University, and hundreds earned our newly launched AI Automation Engineer certification.

But these numbers are just one part of the story. Every finished learning path, solved forum thread, and meetup discussion comes from real people sharing knowledge, trying new things, and helping each other with the daily challenges of enterprise automation.

There are many ways to contribute to the Pathfinder Community. Members answer questions, share projects, speak at user groups and meetups, give product feedback, take University courses, and help newcomers. All of these actions make a difference.

At the Pathfinder Summit 2026, we recognized members who made our community better this year. Let’s celebrate our 2026 Pathfinder Award winners in every category.

Learning in public

The Course Conqueror: Gaston Fouche

The Course Conqueror award goes to someone dedicated to learning, always building their automation skills, and taking on every challenge. Gaston spent a ton of time at Automation Anywhere University this year, finishing courses to keep learning and stay current with new releases. He completed 43 learning paths, 449 courses, and earned three certifications.

The Knowledge Seeker: Soumyadeep Chakraborty

The Knowledge Seeker award is for a member whose curiosity starts discussions and helps everyone learn together. Soumyadeep Chakraborty started 33 discussion topics in community groups this year and joined conversations about certifications, running Python scripts, building AI agents, and more. His questions about stuck queues, bot deployment errors, and scripts that will not run are the same threads future developers will find when they face similar problems.

Helping others build

The Support Star: Dineshkumar Muthu

The Support Star goes above and beyond to help others by answering questions and sharing knowledge. This support helps new members get started. Dineshkumar, who is also a Community Captain, solved 19 problems and posted 17 replies this year. His answers covered issues like a Bot Agent not reinstalling on a local device, a workload package not launching a bot in a device pool, and a print action that stopped working after a Bot Runner machine’s domain changed.

The Collaborator: Javier Alverson

The Collaborator starts meaningful discussions and brings people together by sharing ideas. Besides asking and answering questions, the Collaborator begins conversations that help others think about strategy and their next steps.

Javier replied 83 times and started 41 topics this year, solving 11 of them. He answered questions about role-based access control (RBAC) for inbound Model Context Protocol (MCP) connections and handling complex tables in Document Automation. He joined several feature feedback groups and user experience (UX) sessions, pointed members to helpful posts, and attended so many programs that meetup and user group hosts know him by name.

Javier won the Knowledge Seeker award last year. This year, he used what he learned to help others, making him a winner for the second year in a row.

Spreading the word and shaping what comes next

The Social Star: Kishore Gosika

Most practitioners handle a steady stream of announcements, product updates, webinars, articles, and LinkedIn posts, all while managing their own work. It’s easy for useful content and community conversations to get lost. The Social Star helps others find learning opportunities and peer discussions that help them grow.

Kishore Gosika of Hexa Data Solutions does this all the time. He brings automation professionals together through Pathfinder meetups and supports the community on LinkedIn and in a WhatsApp group for automation professionals. His steady support makes him feel like an extended member of the Pathfinder team.

The Feedback Fanatic: Jeremiah Logan

The Feedback Fanatic always gives thoughtful, helpful feedback on products and programs, helping shape what comes next. This year’s winner made community processes smoother and improved the experience for everyone.

Jeremiah Logan is one of our Most Valuable Pathfinders (MVPs). Before Pathfinder Training Camp, program leaders got early access to test the content and activities. Jeremiah joined in, gave feedback, and helped shape what participants experienced at Training Camp. He also gave feedback on missions in the Agentic App Store.

Showing up and leading

The Program Champion: Steven Hemerka

The Program Champion is someone who shows up, joins community programs with enthusiasm, advocates for the community, and knows Pathfinder lore well. Steven Hemerka attended more than 40 community events this year and picked up a deep knowledge of the community's very niche memes along the way. He has been an MVP for two years and has now won Program Champion two years in a row.

The next two awards went to leaders from our Community Captain and MVP programs. These members have the passion and dedication to create spaces where others can connect, learn, and grow.

Community Captain of the Year: Wilson Cabral

Wilson Cabral has been a Community Captain for almost two years. Whenever he hosts an event, he goes above and beyond to help others grow and succeed. We’re proud of how much he has grown in the community during that time.

MVP of the Year: Jason Dornblaser

In January, Jason Dornblaser finished his third year as an MVP. Many members have seen him on stage at Automation Anywhere’s flagship event Imagine and at Pathfinder Summit, where he led a session this year. He’s always present and has been a steady champion for both the community and Automation Anywhere.

Huge congratulations to Gaston, Soumyadeep, Dineshkumar, Javier, Kishore, Jeremiah, Steven, Wilson, and Jason. Thanks to everyone who built, shared, learned, fixed, and taught this year. You’re what makes Pathfinder such a great community.

Your path into next year’s awards
 

Each of these awards shows something any member can start doing this week. Take a course or learning path in Automation Anywhere University. Post your question in the Pathfinder forums or answer one you already know how to fix. Join a developer meetup or user group, share feedback when product and program teams ask, and if you’re ready to lead, check out the MVP programs.