Tilda Udufo, 22
Tilda Udufo: Coding Confidence and Community, One Pull Request at a Time
Tilda Udufo has always loved puzzles, whether she was building elaborate LEGO castles or stringing elegant lines of Ruby. “Coding was the first time I truly wanted to pursue something for myself,” she says, and that spark of curiosity has turned into global impact.
The momentum started during her Major League Hacking Fellowship, where she shipped production code for the widely used eslint‑plugin‑react. Orientation week included her first‑ever hackathon, and she walked away with a win, proof that a team of strangers can become friends when united by caffeine and creativity.
Today, Tilda blends technical horsepower with tireless advocacy. She serves as both program organizer and mentor advocate for Outreachy, the international internship program that brings underrepresented talent into open source. In that role, she helps onboard and support an average of 30 mentoring organizations and hundreds of mentors and coordinators each year, while also contributing to the Outreachy platform itself. From managing application cycles with thousands of applicants to guiding new mentors and interns – many of whom remind her of her younger self – her work plays a key role in helping the program remain inclusive and impactful. Her résumé is equally rich outside Outreachy. She has created more than two hundred first‑time contributor issues across multiple Public Lab open source repositories, and she regularly hosts workshops that demystify Git and GitHub for absolute beginners. Each of these efforts, she explains, lowers the barrier for newcomers who “might never have heard that they belong in tech.” One participant captured her impact perfectly: “You could have left us to flounder, but you didn’t, so thank you.” Tilda keeps that message pinned to her notes as a reminder of her mission.
Although she has racked up achievements, Tilda measures success in confidence unlocked rather than lines of code. She beams when talking about the mentee who merged a first pull request or the community volunteer who stepped up to become a maintainer. “I’m proud not just of what I’ve built,” she says, “but of the people I’ve helped feel seen, supported, and confident enough to build alongside me.”
Ruby remains her language of choice because “when I write code in Ruby, it feels very natural, like writing English.” Outside the terminal, she runs her life from a sprawling digital notebook system filled with workshop outlines, mentoring tips, and Taylor Swift karaoke set lists. She still unwinds with LEGO builds and thriller novels, enjoying the click‑into‑place satisfaction that first drew her to puzzles.
A recent Information Systems graduate from Middlesex University, London, Tilda has already mentored contributors from five continents, proving that kindness and a thoughtful pull‑request comment can shrink oceans as effectively as any fiber‑optic cable. Her trajectory shows that impact does not require prestige or perfection; it begins with showing up, lifting others, and believing you belong in tech even when no one has told you so before.
From puzzle‑obsessed kid to open source maintainer and hackathon champion, Tilda Udufo continues fitting pieces together. Every merge, workshop, and encouraging comment adds to a larger picture, one where anyone, anywhere, can find their place in the tech community and help build the future at her side.
Quick Facts
Tilda Udufo, 22
Tilda Udufo: Coding Confidence and Community, One Pull Request at a Time
Tilda Udufo has always loved puzzles, whether she was building elaborate LEGO castles or stringing elegant lines of Ruby. “Coding was the first time I truly wanted to pursue something for myself,” she says, and that spark of curiosity has turned into global impact.
The momentum started during her Major League Hacking Fellowship, where she shipped production code for the widely used eslint‑plugin‑react. Orientation week included her first‑ever hackathon, and she walked away with a win, proof that a team of strangers can become friends when united by caffeine and creativity.
Today, Tilda blends technical horsepower with tireless advocacy. She serves as both program organizer and mentor advocate for Outreachy, the international internship program that brings underrepresented talent into open source. In that role, she helps onboard and support an average of 30 mentoring organizations and hundreds of mentors and coordinators each year, while also contributing to the Outreachy platform itself. From managing application cycles with thousands of applicants to guiding new mentors and interns – many of whom remind her of her younger self – her work plays a key role in helping the program remain inclusive and impactful. Her résumé is equally rich outside Outreachy. She has created more than two hundred first‑time contributor issues across multiple Public Lab open source repositories, and she regularly hosts workshops that demystify Git and GitHub for absolute beginners. Each of these efforts, she explains, lowers the barrier for newcomers who “might never have heard that they belong in tech.” One participant captured her impact perfectly: “You could have left us to flounder, but you didn’t, so thank you.” Tilda keeps that message pinned to her notes as a reminder of her mission.
Although she has racked up achievements, Tilda measures success in confidence unlocked rather than lines of code. She beams when talking about the mentee who merged a first pull request or the community volunteer who stepped up to become a maintainer. “I’m proud not just of what I’ve built,” she says, “but of the people I’ve helped feel seen, supported, and confident enough to build alongside me.”
Ruby remains her language of choice because “when I write code in Ruby, it feels very natural, like writing English.” Outside the terminal, she runs her life from a sprawling digital notebook system filled with workshop outlines, mentoring tips, and Taylor Swift karaoke set lists. She still unwinds with LEGO builds and thriller novels, enjoying the click‑into‑place satisfaction that first drew her to puzzles.
A recent Information Systems graduate from Middlesex University, London, Tilda has already mentored contributors from five continents, proving that kindness and a thoughtful pull‑request comment can shrink oceans as effectively as any fiber‑optic cable. Her trajectory shows that impact does not require prestige or perfection; it begins with showing up, lifting others, and believing you belong in tech even when no one has told you so before.
From puzzle‑obsessed kid to open source maintainer and hackathon champion, Tilda Udufo continues fitting pieces together. Every merge, workshop, and encouraging comment adds to a larger picture, one where anyone, anywhere, can find their place in the tech community and help build the future at her side.
