Education & opportunity
Pathfinder
From a website
to school approval.
Four months building and improving a live student opportunities platform in Ghana. I developed the website and database, used student feedback to expand it, and kept local operations moving through pitches and school outreach.
Platform & database · Product iteration · Pitches · School outreach
The decisions along the way
What I built in Ghana.
Starting with student needs and what we could realistically build.Illustrated feature map
Choosing something we could act on
A useful idea also has to be feasible.
Our team explored education and transport ideas for a social venture. Permission, cost and practical constraints made the transport options harder to deliver in our available time.
I argued for education and brought supporting research into our discussions.
We spoke with local people, business owners and students. Those conversations helped shape the problem we chose.
We focused on helping students explore careers and learning opportunities earlier, before committing to a direction.
Learning by building
Give students a way to explore what is possible.
Pathfinder connected interests with careers, courses, certifications, university routes and international opportunities. Students could try learning about a field before committing to it.
I built the website and database with AI-assisted coding, and learned how to deploy it with Vercel as I worked.
The idea and early interviews came from the team. The platform served students near the end of secondary school and at university.
Students used the live platform to explore opportunities and submit CVs.
Making the second version more useful
The next features came from listening.
Student feedback informed a second version with more international opportunities and internship features for companies and students.
I built the second version, including opportunity listings, student applications and topic-based tests with a seven-day retry interval for internship access.
A teammate led employer outreach and connected us with four companies offering internship opportunities.
Student feedback became working features: opportunities to browse, applications to submit and a way for companies to list internships.
A closer look
What would you want to understand about the next version?
Choose a detail to explore.
What students asked for
Feedback led me to add more international opportunities and internship features for students and companies.
What the team contributed
A teammate led employer outreach and the four company connections. My contribution was building the platform features.
How access worked
I added topic-based tests and a seven-day retry interval for internship access. These were product choices; we did not validate them as assessments of job readiness.
Keeping the work moving
Development was only part of my day.
For roughly the final two months, I was the only team member still in Ghana. Local operations, meetings and pitches continued alongside development.
I prepared presentations, pitched to entrepreneurs and investors, managed practical spending and led school outreach. I also delivered one student session introducing AI, free tools and Pathfinder.
Friends helped with smaller tasks, including support at a busy pitch event. The project built on the team’s earlier work.
The platform and outreach continued. School discussions led to approval for a broader high-school programme through Ga West Municipality.
Planning beyond my own time in Ghana
Approval arrived close to departure.
The wider school programme was approved near the end of my stay. It had not run under me before I left at the end of April.
I discussed continuation with an NGO and shared the approval documents through WhatsApp. I wanted the project to remain free.
Any later delivery depended on others. I have not followed up on what happened after the documents were shared.
The school approval and documents were in place. Later delivery remains unconfirmed; my direct involvement ended when I left Ghana.
A closer look
What would make the project more sustainable?
Choose a detail to explore.
People on the ground
In a future version, I would aim to have another person working with me locally instead of relying on one teammate being there.
A follow-up process
I shared the documents, but did not verify later delivery. A clearer follow-up process is something I would build in.
Resources to continue
I would explore sponsorship and reach more schools. These are future ideas, not outcomes we already achieved.
Ga West, Ghana
Taking Pathfinder into schools.
Alongside building Pathfinder, I pitched in Accra, met school contacts and worked towards approval for a wider programme. This photograph is from the school-partnership process in Ga West.
What stays with me
Continuity needs more than a handover.
I would build in local staffing and a clearer follow-up process from the beginning. I learned a lot by keeping the work moving, but a larger programme should not depend on one person being there.
The story, in my words.
From January to April 2026, I worked on Pathfinder in Ghana. We considered education and transport ideas, spoke with local people and chose education. I supported that direction with research. Business-owner and student interviews helped us see the value of exploring careers and learning options earlier.
I built the website and database using AI-assisted coding, and learned Vercel deployment while working on it. It became a live platform used by students. Their feedback led me to create a second version with more international opportunities and internship features. A teammate led employer outreach and connected us with four companies; I built the company and student features. I do not have an established internship-placement count.
For roughly the last two months, I was the only team member still on the ground. I continued development, pitches, practical budgeting and school outreach, with friends helping on smaller tasks. I delivered one student session on AI, free tools and exploring opportunities through Pathfinder.
School discussions resulted in approval for a broader programme through Ga West Municipality, close to my departure. That programme had not run under me before I left. I discussed continuation with an NGO and passed the documents over, but I have not verified what happened afterwards. My account ends with the work I did, the approval and those continuation discussions.
What I worked on
- Website development
- School outreach
- Stakeholder meetings
- Local operations
- Project handover
This was a live student platform. The wider school programme was approved but had not run under me when I left; subsequent delivery is unconfirmed.