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.

We are dedicated to fostering an open yet secure environment, balancing the safety of students, staff, and visitors with respect for individual rights, and safeguarding responsibilities.

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.

The African Leadership University is committed to ensuring the safety and Well-being of all students under our care. As part of this commitment , we have a comprehensive safeguarding policy in place , which outlines our Zero-tolerance approach to any violation of safeguarding.

ROLE OVERVIEW

Own the tools. Build the infrastructure. Keep the engine running.

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.

This is a role for someone who loves systems, moves fast, and finds genuine satisfaction in making things work better. If you have ever reorganized a chaotic shared drive and felt proud of it, this is your role.

Key Responsibilities

Asana Portfolio & Roadmap Management

• 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.
• Ensure the tech roadmap workstream (OPEX-ETO collaboration) is accurately reflected in Asana at all times.

Google Workspace Architecture & Maintenance

• Own the OPEX team’s Google Drive: folder structure, naming conventions, access permissions, and version control.
• Lead the institutional shared drive cleanup initiative: audit existing folders, implement role-based access logic, and migrate content to the agreed-upon architecture.
• Build and maintain the OPEX team’s institutional wiki in Google Sites or Asana: process documentation, team templates, ways-of-working guides.
• Establish and enforce a clean, consistent file-naming and folder-structure standard that the wider organization can adopt.

AI Tools & Productivity Stack

• Configure, manage, and optimize the team’s AI notetaker (Gemini for Education or equivalent): meeting setup, speaker identification, output quality review.
• Review AI-generated meeting notes for accuracy before they are distributed. Correct errors. Ensure action items are extracted correctly.

Slack Optimization

• Audit the team’s Slack setup: channels, naming, integrations, notification settings.
• Configure Slack integrations with Asana and Google Calendar so key updates surface in the right channels automatically.
• Propose and implement a Slack channel structure and communication protocol for the OPEX team that reduces noise and improves signal.

Skills Required

Profile & Mindset

• Currently completing or recently completed a degree in information systems, business, computer science, data analytics, project management, or a related field.
• Demonstrable hands-on experience with at least three of the tools listed above — not just familiarity, but genuine working proficiency.
• Has built or managed a complex shared drive, Asana workspace, or similar system before — and can speak to how they did it.
• Comfortable with AI tools and actively uses them in their own workflow.

Mindset: This role suits someone who takes quiet, deep satisfaction in making systems work beautifully. You do not need recognition for every task. You need to know the infrastructure is solid. You are the kind of person who organizes shared drives for fun, who reads release notes for tools you use, and who cannot let a broken process sit unaddressed. You are not waiting to be told what to fix. You are already fixing it.

Success Indicators