WhatNxt

Landing page
Alumni Connect
Transitioning guide
Degree planner
AI assistant

Inspiration

When we joined CMU-Africa, one of the things we noticed, and heard from others was the struggle to find a single place where students could find everything they need to navigate their journey.
From transitioning to life in Kigali and figuring out accommodation, to selecting courses, planning degrees, and understanding what each concentration truly involves - most of the information already exists, but it’s spread across different platforms.
Students often rely on WhatsApp groups, informal chats with seniors, Tartan Tuesdays, or other campus sessions to piece things together. While helpful, these sources are scattered and don’t always show how each decision connects to future opportunities.
We wanted to build something that brings all of that together ; a platform that helps every Tartan understand the path ahead by learning from real experiences and data within our own community. That idea became WhatNxt.

What it does

WhatNxt is a connected digital guide built for CMU-Africa students.
It consolidates the most important parts of the student experience - from settling into Kigali to planning courses, exploring research, and preparing for future opportunities - all in one place.
Students can:
1) Access a Transition Guide for practical information about living and studying in Kigali.
2) Explore Degree and Course Planning insights - see how past students structured their semesters, why they selected specific courses, and what those courses helped them achieve.
3) Visit the Career Insight Hub to learn how different concentrations connect to real roles, internships, and skills in demand.
4) Browse a Research Explorer to discover past student projects, faculty collaborations, and areas of future work.
5) Connect with Alumni who share similar interests or academic paths.
6) Use an AI Assistant that answers questions and gives personalized suggestions for courses, research directions, or next steps based on their background and interests.

The goal of WhatNxt is to make the CMU-Africa experience easier to navigate by bringing together information, stories, and tools that help every student plan their next move with clarity and confidence.

How we built it

Our solution is a web application that can be run both on mobile and desktop devices. The system comprises two parts: a web frontend and a backend application. Currently, we have not yet developed a backend application; we are using static data for our MVP. Later on, we plan to use Python Django for our backend. For the frontend application, we used ReactJS and TypeScript. Finally, our database is a relational database, PostgreSQL. We also use GenAI for project planning.

Challenges we ran into

We faced a few challenges while developing our solution. The first one was on the planning of the project itself, and we did not know what features to add on our website. Apart from that, we did not meet other apparent challenge.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

1) Turning a common CMU-Africa problem into a prototype in just a few days.
2) Designing clear user journeys from transition → course planning → alumni connection.
3) Seeing appreciation from students who tested the concept, and looked forward to using the app.

What we learned

1) How to translate student feedback into actual design features.
2) The importance of user testing - even short conversations with peers helped us refine our idea.
3) That simple design choices (like showing “why” a course was chosen) can completely change how students make decisions.

What's next for WhatNxt

We plan to expand WhatNxt beyond the prototype stage by connecting it to CMU-Africa data sources. Our long-term goal is to train an AI model once enough student and alumni data has been gathered, so future users can receive personalized guidance without needing to search through multiple pages. We also hope to collaborate with Student Affairs and the Alumni Office to make the platform a lasting, sustainable resource for every Tartan. Regardless of the voting outcome, our team plans to apply to the Industry Innovation Lab, because this is a project we genuinely want to see come to life and serve the CMU-Africa community.