Putting RASMS online, and leading the innovation club

January 2023 was the month two threads came together.

RASMS goes online

For more than two years, RASMS had run offline on Windows computers at Musamvu TVET School, with encrypted .rasms backups carrying data between machines. That design was a response to the school's lack of reliable internet.

In January 2023 I deployed RASMS online for the school, through HDEV TECH, at musamvutss.hdev.rw.

It changed how the school worked:

• Teachers could collaborate remotely, entering and reviewing data from wherever they were instead of from one machine.
• Data was available anywhere to authorised users, so the headteacher no longer had to wait for backup files.

RASMS registers around 500 students every year, and it remains a system built for and used by that one school.

Going online also meant new responsibilities the offline version never had: hosting, access control over the internet, and protecting a school's data on a public server.

Leading the club

Also in January 2023, I became leader of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Club at IPRC Tumba.

The club's work was practical. We helped students take their ideas and turn them into MVPs (minimum viable products: the simplest version that can be tested with real users) and prototypes, and helped them get their companies registered, the same step I had taken with HDEV TECH a few months earlier.

Learning AI for entrepreneurship

Later in 2023 I attended AI-NGET, the AI-Powered Next Generation Entrepreneurship Training, at the University of Rwanda. It was my first structured training in applying AI to products and businesses, ahead of the AI projects that followed: Tryit, Ndengera and my AI customer support capstone.

What I took from it

Architecture should follow context. Offline was right for RASMS when the school had no connection. Online was right once remote collaboration became possible. Neither was the permanent answer.

Remote access is a security decision. Making data available anywhere is only valuable if it is available to the right people only.

Help others take the steps you have taken. Running the club meant helping students move from idea to prototype to company, a small version of what I do as a technical leader today.