DavidParsley/alu-study-buddy

Claude-powered study assistant for African Leadership University students # ALU Study Buddy 🎓 > A Claude-powered study assistant built specifically for African Leadership University students. ALU Study Buddy helps students understand their course material faster and deeper. Paste your lecture notes, pick a study mode, and chat with an AI tutor that understands ALU's values, mission, and academic integrity standards. Built for the **ALU Claude Builder Club Hackathon — May 2026.** --- ## What It Does Students paste their notes or readings into the notes panel, select one of three study modes, and chat with Claude about their material: - **Explain** — breaks down complex concepts using simple language, analogies, and African real-world examples - **Quiz Me** — generates practice questions directly from the student's notes and gives constructive feedback on answers - **Summarise** — distills notes into structured summaries with key concepts, definitions, and an ALU Leadership Link The app is built around ALU's mission: developing ethical, entrepreneurial leaders who solve Africa's most pressing challenges. Every response reflects that context. --- ## Why It's Different From Just Using Claude - **ALU-specific context** — system prompts reference ALU's pedagogy, honor code, and leadership mission - **African examples** — Claude is instructed to use African economies, businesses, and leaders in explanations - **Academic integrity guardrails** — the app actively refuses to write assignments or essays, explaining why - **Mode-specific behaviour** — three completely different Claude personas depending on what the student needs - **Session persistence** — conversations survive page refresh and browser tabs via localStorage - **Purpose-built UI** — designed around a study workflow, not a general chat interface --- ## Tech Stack | Layer | Technology | |---|---| | Frontend | React + Vite + TailwindCSS | | Backend | FastAPI (Python) | | AI | Anthropic Claude API (`claude-sonnet-4-5`) | | Icons | Lucide React | | Markdown | react-markdown | …