After graduating, Akiwowo was an intern at the House of Commons and the European Youth Forum.[5] In 2014, at the age of 23, Akiwowo was the youngest black woman to be elected as a councillor for the Labour Party in East London.[6][7] She believes that involvement with local politics is important to mitigate the rise of the alt-right.[8] She also believes in equal access to education and training for all young people. She is a senior project coordinator for Teach First. She was also a founding associate of Spark+Mettle, a charity which supports young people in the development of their resilience and soft skills using technology and coaching.[9]
Akiwowo delivered a speech at the European Parliament about how countries such as Britain, France and Italy should deal with the impact of colonialism.[10] Her speech was met with boos by the audience in the room, to which she responded, "You can boo me all you like, baby,". After a video of her speech went viral online, Akiwowo was subject to racist abuse on Twitter.[10][11] The tweets were reported to Twitter over 75 times, as well as to the Metropolitan Police.[10] Initially the social media platforms failed to respond to her complains, but suspended some of the particularly racist accounts after Akiwowo went public with her story.[12] In an Amnesty International – Ipsos MORI poll, one fifth of women said they had suffered harassment on social media.[12]
Akiwowo designed the Fix the Glitch, a toolkit which supports organisations in how to end gender-based violence.[13] The workshops have three pillars; awareness, advocacy and action. She believes that women need to reclaim their digital space and "assert their presence".[14] Akiwowo does not want to restrict peoples rights or freedom of speech; but protect people from online trolls who can hide behind anonymity.[8] She established Glitch, a platform and advice provider that helps young people stay protected online.[15] Her campaign has been supported by Amnesty International.[16] Glitch is supported by a Fairer Tech grant from Dot Everyone.[17] Akiwowo was one of the founders of the #ToxicTwitter campaign, which looks to end the online abuse of women.[18] She has written for Gender IT, a collection of feminist reflections on internet policies.[19] She delivered a TEDx London talk on how to "fix the glitch" in online communities in 2019.[20]
In 2018 Akiwowo was selected as the Amnesty International Human Rights Defender and as a Stylist Woman of the Week. She was featured in Yomi Adegoke's book Slay in Your Lane, as well as on the podcast Busy Being Black.[21] In June 2019 Akiwowo was awarded Digital Leader of the Year.[22][23][24] She has written for HuffPost and The Guardian.[25][26]
In 2019 Akiwowo was chosen as one of Marie Clare's Future Shapers; trailblazers who are working hard to make the world a happier, safer and better place for women.[27] In October 2019 Akiwowo was listed in the Evening Standard as one of London's most influential people in the social media stars category.[1]