Angela Oduor Lungati leads Ushahidi and champions open technology, data equity, and women’s empowerment globally.
Angela Oduor Lungati is a Kenyan technologist, open-source advocate, and community builder whose career spans more than a decade at the intersection of technology, social good, and global collaboration. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Ushahidi, a non-profit technology company best known for developing open-source crisis-mapping tools that enable communities to collect, share, and act on information during emergencies.
Under her leadership, Ushahidi’s tools have been used in more than 140 countries, including critical deployments during the COVID-19 pandemic, where real-time geospatial data supported governments and local communities in resource allocation and crisis response.
Lungati’s rise to leadership
Angela Oduor Lungati’s journey to leadership within Ushahidi began in 2011 as a software developer. She steadily advanced through roles focusing on developer relations and global community engagement, culminating in her appointment as Executive Director in 2019, following a period as Co-Executive Director.
She has led Ushahidi to undergo a strategic shift to enhance accessibility to its technology. This initiative aimed to remove technical and financial barriers, enabling grassroots organisations and marginalised communities to easily deploy Ushahidi’s tools. This approach significantly broadened Ushahidi’s global reach, supporting diverse projects such as election monitoring in Nigeria, earthquake response in Haiti, and documentation of violence during the Syrian civil war. Concurrently, she fostered a robust worldwide network of developers and contributors, thereby strengthening Ushahidi’s open-source ecosystem.
Beyond her contributions to Ushahidi, Lungati co-founded AkiraChix in 2010 while still a university student. This Nairobi-based non-profit is dedicated to empowering women with technology skills to drive innovation and create solutions for Africa.
As its Community Building Director until 2017, she was instrumental in developing mentorship programs, training workshops, and events. These initiatives expanded opportunities for young women in technology and increased female representation in Africa’s digital economy, with AkiraChix remaining a vital pathway for women entering tech fields.
Angela Oduor Lungati also plays a significant role in the global governance of knowledge and open data. In 2021, she joined the board of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organisation instrumental in shaping worldwide approaches to open licensing and digital knowledge sharing. By 2024, she was appointed Chair of the Board. In this capacity, she guides the organisation through the evolving challenges of generative AI, prioritising access, equity, and collaboration.
She further sits on the board of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and contributes to the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Data Equity, where she advocates for more inclusive and equitable uses of data in policy and practice.
Awards and recognition
Lungati has received significant recognition for her contributions. In 2024, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, joining a network of individuals shaping the future of policy and innovation worldwide. That same year, she was honoured as a Mozilla Rise25 Changemaker for her leadership in using AI and open technologies to support marginalised populations and promote data equity.
