Africa-Press – Angola. Open-source software now underpins more than 90% of enterprise applications, driving everything from fintech platforms to social networks. GitHub’s 2023 Octoverse report spotted 94 million developers collaborating across over 330 million repositories. Yet fewer than 5% of contributors log sustained, meaningful contributions, and even fewer are young engineers from underrepresented regions.
Global South in catching up
While contributors in North America and Europe have long dominated the open-source movement, momentum is increasingly shifting toward the Global South. According to the Eclipse Foundation’s State of Open Source in the Global South report, 37% of surveyed developers now actively contribute to open source, with 28% serving as maintainers and 22% launching their own projects (eclipse.org).In Africa, the share of GitHub contributing authors increased from under 0.5% in 2010 to approximately 2.7% in 2020, while contributions from African authors rose from 0.3% to roughly 2.3% (ictworks.org). Yet, despite this progress, no African country ranked among the top 30 globally for active open-source contributors as of 2022 (merlcenter.org). The trend suggests a catch-up phase: as infrastructure, education, and community support expand, more developers across Asia, Latin America, and Africa are positioning themselves as creators and maintainers, rather than only users, in the open-source ecosystem.
For young Tilda, who started coding in her teenage years, it was love at first sight. Tilda recalls her introduction to tech started through open source. Born out of curiosity and a desire to contribute to something that made an impact, she saw open source as more than just code; it was a way to connect with people around the world and build tools that mattered. With no formal roadmap, she relied on persistence, community, and the belief that technology should be accessible to everyone. My motivation was simple, “I want to make technology more accessible, especially to people who’ve been historically excluded or made to feel like they don’t belong,” she says.
“I want to make technology more accessible, especially to people who’ve been historically excluded or made to feel like they don’t belong.”
Whether reviewing code for a newcomer’s first pull request or contributing to developer tools used by millions, Tilda had one goal in mind: to lower the barrier to entry and raise the level of support in the tech industry.
After countless months of learning, she began her first open-source contributions to Public Lab, a civic tech platform focused on environmental justice. Tilda quickly became a key figure in sustaining its contributor ecosystem. She reviewed over 350 pull requests, created more than 160 onboarding issues for first-time contributors, and mentored Google Summer of Code interns. Her work didn’t just support the project’s technical foundation; it strengthened the long-term maintainability of Public Lab’s tools and helped establish a more inclusive entry point for people entering the tech field. Seeing her growing expertise, she volunteered to become a Code Community Coordinator. She led efforts that made the project more scalable, shaping contributor pipelines now used by grassroots science organisations worldwide.
On self-belief and going global
To go global, Tilda needed a well-orchestrated plan. She knew that just contributing to open source isn’t enough. She had to prove that age wasn’t a barrier and that she needed no permission. After enormous research, she came to learn about Major League Hacking (MLH). At MLH, which was a lifetime opportunity, Tilda stood out. During her time as a Major League Hacking (MLH) Fellow, she worked on eslint-plugin-react, a plugin used in over 19 million public repositories and downloaded more than 20 million times weekly. Her improvements addressed long-standing bugs, expanded rule coverage, and enhanced maintainability, thereby reinforcing code quality for numerous React developers worldwide. Out of over 500 contributors, Tilda ranks among the top 6%. Her reach doesn’t stop there.
Tilda Udufo is named one of Major League Hacking’s Top 50 hackers of 2025
She contributed patches to Mozilla Firefox, and her name was included in the official list of new contributors for Firefox 89, a release used by hundreds of millions of people. She’s also made meaningful contributions to the OCaml language and participated in code reviews across multiple projects, earning her a spot among the Top active GitHub users, ranked by reviews and contributions. From civic tech to browser engines to core developer tools, Tilda has consistently chosen open source as her platform for impact, building, fixing, and reviewing code used worldwide.
To whom much is given, much is definitely expected.
For her, giving back to the community that built her is paramount. Tilda is self-aware and knows she has a story to tell. This is why, when Tilda Udufo was called upon to speak at the largest open-source conference in Africa, even when the audience often skews older and more experienced. At this year’s Open Source Festival, one of the youngest speakers on stage was 22-year-old Tilda Udufo, whose work highlights the role of African developers in the global open-source ecosystem.
Udufo is also involved with Sustain Africa, a working group dedicated to promoting the adoption of open-source solutions across the continent. She also contributes to local developer communities, mentoring newcomers and running workshops that introduce people to their first open-source contributions. Additionally, she collaborates with the Coding Clubhouse, an initiative that teaches fundamental coding concepts to children.
Tilda’s writing and talks often centre on breaking down complex technical concepts for broader audiences, providing resources that make participation in open source more accessible. As open source becomes increasingly global, initiatives in regions like Africa are playing a larger role in shaping the culture around collaboration and contribution.
Africa needs more Champions.
As the continent’s developer community grows, individual leaders play a significant role in setting examples, opening doors, and ensuring that new talent can participate on an equal footing. However, the responsibility cannot rest solely on individuals. Stronger institutional support from universities, companies, and governments will be essential to scale these efforts, creating an environment where contributions to open source are encouraged, recognised, and sustained. The combination of visible advocates and supportive ecosystems could accelerate the transition from being primarily users of technology to becoming active shapers of the global open-source movement.
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