Digital Systems & Operations Intern

ABOUT ALU

ALU provides higher education for a higher purpose. Our students declare missions, not majors. They develop the real-world skills to take on the world’s most pressing challenges. And they take ownership of their learning from day one through our peer and student-led approach – because ALU believes in the power and agency of young people to start shaping the future right now. Together with a world-class faculty and staff, our students are igniting a ripple of positive impact across Africa and the world.

HOW WE WORK

The ALU Team works in starkly different ways to traditional academic bureaucracies. We approach education from first principles, empower individuals to design, test, and implement creative new ideas, and work closely together to craft transformative learning experiences. We are deeply passionate about our students and excited by the challenge of building something entirely new.

ROLE OVERVIEW

Department: Performance & Governance – Operational Excellence

Location: Remote (with collaboration across Rwanda, Mauritius and global functions)

Type: Internship – Full-time

Duration: 6 months

Role Summary

The Digital Systems & Operations Intern is the technical backbone of the OPEX function. This role owns the configuration, maintenance, and continuous improvement of the tools and data infrastructure that the entire operational excellence team — and, by extension, the institution — relies on every day.

You will be the go-to person for Asana, Google Workspace, Slack, and any AI-powered productivity tools deployed by the team. You will build and maintain dashboards, keep the project portfolio updated with real-time actuals, ensure the institutional knowledge base is clean and accessible, and identify opportunities to automate repetitive work. You will work closely with the IT team and the ETO to ensure tool configurations support operational goals rather than create friction.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the OPEX Asana workspace: project structure, portfolio views, custom fields, rules, and automations.
• Maintain the strategic project portfolio with up-to-date actuals by assisting the project managers: milestone completions, RAG status updates, owner assignments, and dependencies.
• Update Asana with new tasks, sub-tasks, and projects arising from business reviews and team meetings — same day, without being asked.
• Build and maintain portfolio dashboards and reporting views that give leadership a real-time snapshot of strategic initiative health.
• Configure Asana automations to reduce manual data entry: auto-routing of tasks, deadline reminders, and status escalations.