In April 2021, 21-year-old Ruth Ikegah was a fresh microbiology graduate from the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) just one month away from relocating to Lagos for her National Youth Service (NYSC). She was scraping by on a one-off management gig that earned her ₦70,000 ($170*). Her fortunes changed in a flash, by way of a technical writing job that paid $5,000 a month (over ₦2 million). She recalls letting out a scream during the hiring call.
“It came at the lowest point of my life,” she said in our virtual interview.
Today, Lagos-based Ikegah has built an award-winning career and earns over $70,000 annually. She is a leading advocate for African participation in open source initiatives that seek to promote and protect open-source software. Her work has taken her to 14 countries and led to a 2024 United Nations speaking engagement. Trained as a developer, she rarely writes code. In an industry where non-coding roles are often dismissed as lightweight, Ikegah proves that success belongs to those bold enough to rewrite the rules.
Seeds of curiosity
Raised in a home with separated parents, Ikegah sometimes received heavy criticism from her stepmother instead of the gentle guidance a biological mother typically provides when a child errs.
“It was so overwhelming that I shrank into myself and became extremely introverted,” she said.
Boarding school jolted her awake—watching public displays of affection between her classmates and their parents made her realise her circumstances weren’t normal.
“It made me think I could dream bigger and have a different life,” she said.
This paradigm of self-reinvention followed her into her undergraduate studies at UNIPORT, where she struggled academically.
“If I failed, I’d just think, ‘I won’t kill myself over this,’” she admitted.
That changed when a friend joked that her flunking grades might end their relationship. It was a wake-up call, Ikegah told me. She read tens of pages of lecture notes, condensing them into bite-sized summaries, and even formed a reading group.
Two friends from the group, Peace Ojemeh and Alabo Briggs, soon caught her attention.
“They weren’t stressing over classes, and were already working for foreign organisations,” she recalled.
When she asked, Ojemeh explained she was a designer volunteering for open source organisations in exchange for stipends, often paid in dollars. She resolved to join them after graduation.
In early 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdown delayed her NYSC service, she turned to her friends, who encouraged her to pursue tech-related skills she found personally appealing.
She chose data analysis with Python. She recalls spending a lot of time at a Rivers State digital hub—a state government initiative for tech literacy where free electricity and internet allowed her to study for months. She took tutorials on platforms like DataCamp and DevCareer and even joined Twitter, where she encountered like-minded enthusiasts like Samson Goddy and Adaora Nwodo, and tech communities like She Code Africa. Soon she began volunteering for open source projects, including those by Linux, an open source operating system that serves as the foundation for many servers, desktops, and embedded systems worldwide.
A volunteer spirit takes root
Despite being unpaid, Ikegah jumped at several volunteer opportunities, including an open-source challenge organised by Open Source Community Africa (OSCA) and She Code Africa (SCA). These experiences accelerated her learning, enabled community building, and provided opportunities to develop her resume without traditional work experience.
In addition, through SCA’s 2020 mentorship programme, Ikegah was paired with a mentor. The mentorship programme included weekly check-ins and challenges that also required technical writing.
“I started producing articles weekly or biweekly,” she said, realising she enjoyed explaining complex topics far more than writing code. “I realised coding wasn’t my passion—I didn’t enjoy it.”
Recognition and reward
Months after taking her friend’s advice, Ikegah became the first African woman to win a GitHub Star award. The recognition was a turning point, bringing both job and speaking opportunities her way including the technical writing role at U.S.-based Animalz, that came with a $5,000 monthly salary.
Earning that first paycheque changed everything, but it came with a heavy workload, and after 11 months, she left the role with over $10,000 in savings and an optimism that she could redefine her career.
“It was tough to leave, but necessary as I have learnt to not overthink or overstay in situations that do not work for me,’ she said. “But first I took a three-month break, including a trip to Dubai—my first real holiday.”
Advocating for open source for Africa
After Animalz, Ikegah determined that supporting developers through documentation and community management aligned best with her interests and skills. So she transitioned into open source programme management full-time.
Despite researching the field and upskilling, Ikegah found that living outside the U.S. posed a barrier to landing a full-time role and went back to volunteering.
Some volunteering roles came with monetary rewards while others did not, but they positioned her as a thought leader in promoting inclusivity and diversity in open source.
Despite growing awareness of open source in Africa, sustained contributions remain a challenge. Many African developers view it as an unpaid stepping stone to better job prospects rather than a long-term commitment, one of several things she hopes to change through her advocacy work.
Her biggest breakthrough came with the CHAOSS Project under the Linux Foundation. When she started contributing in 2020, African participation was minimal. Ikegah increased African participation in the Chaos Project by advocating for more developers to join, helping new contributors find meaningful roles, effectively communicating the project’s value to a wider audience, and conducting diversity and inclusion audits.
Her efforts didn’t go unnoticed. The project’s co-founder invited her to lead a regional chapter, which she continues to lead today.
Beyond community-building, Ikegah consults for African companies who want to monetise open source software through support services, subscriptions, or enterprise solutions, models that have worked previously in Europe and the U.S. Together with OSCA, Ikegah has also launched an accelerator program aimed at fostering the creation of Africa-led open source products.
Her consultations also include mentorships managing programmes for companies.
Ikegah has also branched into grant-funded research projects, working with collaborators from around the world to improve understanding and open source access in Africa.
People often ask how she finds collaborators for funded research, Ikegah said. Mostly through organic networking and people who contact her based on her track record, and her evident passion for the work she does. Offering value upfront, such as she continues to do with volunteer work, often opens doors later. Confidence in selling her skills also helps seal the deal.
Ikegah’s work has taken her to 14 countries on speaking engagements. Among these destinations, Namibia holds a special place—she has visited three times since 2022 for an annual outreach mentoring secondary school students. When she visits the students, she often hands out branded swag to spark their curiosity about technology.
During one visit, supplies ran short, and as the last items vanished, a young girl approached her with a quiet, earnest request: “Please bring me a cup next time.”
That simple plea struck her profoundly, a humbling reminder of her beginnings and her mission to build a future where Africa’s next generation can create open-source innovations as canonical as Linux.
*The exchange rate at the time of the event was ₦410 to $1.
