Campus Compass
AI University Companion for 1M+ South African Students
AI-powered student companion platform with academic tracking, campus navigation, deadline management, and a 24/7 AI assistant. Designed to address South Africa's 50%+ university dropout rate through intelligent support.
Serving
1M+ South African university students
Market
Addressing 50%+ dropout rate
Problem
Academic planning & support gap
Result
200+ active student users
What needed solving
South Africa has a 50%+ university dropout rate, largely driven by poor academic planning, campus navigation challenges, and lack of accessible support. Students need a 24/7 intelligent companion, not just a timetable app.
How I built it
An AI companion platform with OpenAI-powered chatbot, Mapbox campus navigation, academic deadline tracking, resource discovery, and offline PWA capabilities for students with data constraints.
Next.js 14
PWA + SSR for campus application
OpenAI (ChatGPT)
24/7 AI academic assistant
Mapbox
Campus map navigation
Supabase
Student data, schedules, and progress
TypeScript
Reliable academic data handling
PWA
Works offline for data-constrained students
# Campus Compass > AI University Companion for 1M+ South African Students ## Project Context **Category:** Education · AI/ML · SaaS · PWA **Status:** Beta · 2025 **Author:** Nandawula Regine Kabali-Kagwa — East London, South Africa ## Stack ``` Next.js 14 # PWA + SSR for campus application OpenAI (ChatGPT) # 24/7 AI academic assistant Mapbox # Campus map navigation Supabase # Student data, schedules, and progress TypeScript # Reliable academic data handling PWA # Works offline for data-constrained students ``` ## Architecture Notes - All data mutations validated server-side via Next.js API routes - Row-Level Security enforced at database level (Supabase) - Mobile-first, PWA-ready, offline-tolerant where connectivity is unreliable - PayFast integration for ZAR-native payments (no USD conversion) - SEO-optimised: metadata, JSON-LD, canonical URLs, sitemap ## Environment Variables ```env NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL= NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY= SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY= OPENAI_API_KEY= NEXT_PUBLIC_PAYFAST_MERCHANT_ID= NEXT_PUBLIC_PAYFAST_MERCHANT_KEY= RESEND_API_KEY= ``` ## Links - 🌐 Live: Coming soon - 🐙 GitHub: https://github.com/Nanda-Regine/campus-compass - 🏗️ Portfolio: https://creativelynanda.co.za/projects/campus-compass --- Built from East London, South Africa · 5th Industrial Revolution
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