Beginnings / Part 4 of 4
Supporting more than 47 final-year projects while studying
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In March 2022 I started university at what was then IPRC Tumba, now Rwanda Polytechnic Tumba College, studying for an Advanced Diploma in Information Technology.
I didn't stop building. I kept working with the student whose house rental platform I had built, and together we supported university students who needed help with their final-year and capstone projects.
Between 2022 and 2024 we worked on more than 47 of them.
What the projects were
Most came from IT students, and they covered many kinds of software: systems with automated payment reminders, online examination platforms, and a wide range of management systems.
What volume teaches you
One project teaches you a technology. Dozens teach you how to deliver.
Scoping from someone else's analysis. Each student arrived with their own idea and analysis. The first job was always to understand what they needed to demonstrate, and what was nice to have.
Reuse without sameness. Many projects needed the same building blocks: user accounts, payments, reminders, reports. Reusing proven components saved time, but every project still had to fit its own problem.
Deadlines that don't move. A defence date is fixed. That forces honest prioritisation: what must work on the day, and what can be presented as future work.
Explaining the system to its owner. The student had to present and defend the project. If they didn't understand how it worked, it didn't matter how good it was. Handover was part of the job.
Doing it alongside my own studies
All of this happened while I was a full-time student, building Uruziga and, from October 2022, running HDEV TECH Ltd.
What I took from it
Delivery is a skill separate from coding. Scoping, prioritising and handing over are what turn code into a result.
Build a toolkit. Payments, reminders, user management and reporting came up again and again, and getting them right once paid off every time after.
The person defending the work must own it. That applies just as much to leading teams: people need to understand what they ship, not just receive it.