Tech Trivia with Chinenye Anikwenze, software engineer and automation specialist

Some of the most reliable tech systems in Nigeria today are being engineered by women you probably haven’t heard about yet.

Meet Chinenye Anikwenze, a Software Engineer at Homnics Technologies. She also serves as a Software Engineer and Researcher at Tonative, an open-source organisation extending datasets for African languages.

At Homnics, Chinenye builds and maintains the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems that power critical healthcare missions. In 2025, her work was instrumental during the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA) medical outreach, where the system served over 500 patients in under a week.

At Tonative, she builds the internal tools that power the system and validates the accuracy and safety of languages within the open-source infrastructure. Her work ensures that the foundation of these systems is secure.

Chinenye’s entry into tech was a strategic transition. Her Bachelor’s degree in History taught her that institutional fragility is not accidental. So she uses this lesson to build digital systems designed for stability. 

Beyond core engineering, she designs secure workflows using n8n and Zapier, manages her own infrastructure using Docker and a self-hosted VPS, and is currently exploring Agentic AI with frameworks like LangChain and LangGraph.

Chinenye is now specialising in AI Safety and secure infrastructure. She holds Google Cybersecurity and Microsoft AI-900 certificates. She uses these skills to research linguistic weaknesses in African languages, especially Igbo. 

Chinenye Anikwenze

Read also: How Toluwanimi is redefining the way African startups think about the diaspora

1. Summarise your mornings in one sentence

I start my day catching up on Hacker and the Fed and Cyber News Daily podcasts while I check my workflows’ health and prepare for tasks

2. Describe your gadget setup

​I use a minimalist, high-performance PC setup in a clean, focused workspace. I manage a self-hosted Contabo VPS to deploy and run my Dockerized automation and research workflows.

This cloud infrastructure allows me to maintain 24/7 reliability for my internal tools while keeping my physical desk uncluttered.

Gadget Setup by Chinenye

4. What tech tools/ applications do you use the most for work?

My toolkit includes Flutter and React for building interfaces, and n8n and Zapier for orchestrating secure automation workflows.

5. What do you do when you need inspiration?

I read both fiction and non-fiction books, and I check YouTube for technical commentary on topics that interest me.

I also speak with family and friends or brainstorm ideas with AI tools like Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT. This multi-layered approach helps me see problems through different lenses, whether I’m stuck on a complex task or researching new topics.

6. What mobile application can you not do without daily?

WhatsApp, because it’s where I stay connected with my family, friends and tech communities, and it’s also where I receive real-time alerts from my monitoring workflows

7. What tech solution do you wish someone had created?

I wish for an “End-to-End Nigerian Meal Automator.” Cooking our local dishes is very slow because the prep work is done by hand. I want a modular system that handles the hard parts. It should peel yams, blend peppers to specific textures, and chop vegetables automatically.

The second part would be a precision stir-cooker. It would have a motor to stir soups or swallows at the right speed.

This would stop people from standing over a hot stove for hours. As someone who builds digital workflows, I want that same efficiency in my kitchen. It would free up hours every day.

8. If you have unlimited time and money, what problem would you solve?

I would fund and build a comprehensive, open-source language infrastructure for Africa that prioritises security and linguistic accuracy for all local dialects. The goal is to ensure that no culture is digitally invisible or vulnerable to AI exploits.

Additionally, I would invest in the ‘Meal Automator’ project to eliminate the manual strain of preparing complex local dishes. This would give people back hours of their day for their preferred tasks

9. Which woman in tech inspires you the most?

Omotoyosi Ogunbanwo, also known as Miyyah O., inspires me the most. She is a true trailblazer and a goal-getter. As an AI Transformation Leader currently building an AI-powered investment tool, she represents the high-level engineering I admire. 

Beyond her technical work, she is dedicated to teaching financial literacy and encouraging women to enter tech. Her counsel and social media updates were the primary catalysts for my own entry into the industry.

She also runs a vibrant peer-mentorship community where I’ve gained invaluable insights into professional growth.

10. Which profound statement inspires you the most?

“Institutional fragility is not accidental.” This quote resonates with me because of my undergraduate training in History.

It serves as a reminder that the failure of digital or social systems is often a result of specific choices made by people leading movements rather than mere chance.

In my work as an engineer, this drives me to build redundant, secure infrastructure, ensuring that the technology we rely on remains robust and accountable to its users.

11. Whose women in tech trivia would you love to read?

I would love to read a trivia from Miyyah. Her vision for AI and trading in Nigeria is unique, and her journey as a community builder and mentor has had a massive, direct impact on my own career trajectory.

Read also: Ending tax illiteracy through technology: The Perpetual Badejo Story

The post Tech Trivia with Chinenye Anikwenze, software engineer and automation specialist first appeared on Technext.