Sharvard Academy
Sharvard Academy is a technology education academy and full-stack platform founded by Amer Sinjab to move students from theory to practical, real-world execution. Amer led it end to end — from identifying the problem, to product strategy, to system design, to shipping and operating the platform that now runs the academy. The live platform manages enrollment, course delivery, attendance, tasks, and events for 100+ registered students across 10+ universities.
Overview
Sharvard Academy is a practical-education academy based in Istanbul, Türkiye, built around hands-on workshops, internships, real projects, and a supportive student community. Amer Sinjab founded the academy and designed and built the custom platform that runs it — covering enrollment, course delivery, attendance, task management, communication, events, and analytics for students across 10+ universities.
Problem
Direct observation and research with students surfaced a recurring pattern: students lacked practical, applied skills; career guidance was weak; and most learning was disconnected from real-world execution and industry expectations. There was no structured way for students to move from classroom theory into shipped, hands-on work — and no software to run that kind of program at scale once it existed.
Solution
Amer founded Sharvard Academy to close that gap directly: a program built on workshops, internships, and real projects, backed by a student community. As the academy grew past what spreadsheets and manual coordination could handle, he designed and built a custom platform to run it — enrollment, courses, tasks, workshops, attendance, and analytics in one system, replacing fragmented, manual coordination with a live operational platform.
My Role
Amer was the founder and sole product/engineering owner of Sharvard Academy: setting the product strategy, designing the system architecture, and building the full-stack platform himself, in addition to running academy operations — student acquisition, program design, event planning, and partnerships.
Architecture
The platform is built as a role-based system: administrators, staff, and students each get dashboards scoped to what they need — enrollment and registration review for admins, course and task delivery for students, and attendance/communication tools shared across roles. Enrollments, courses, tasks, attendance records, and event/RSVP data are modeled together so that a student's progress, participation, and communication history stay connected in one system instead of scattered across separate tools.
Core modules
- Admin panel — dashboard, student directory, enrollment review/approval, permissions, security center
- Course delivery — day-by-day course structure with materials and tasks, progress tracking
- Attendance and task management
- Events and RSVPs
- Messaging and email campaigns
Technology
Product Decisions
Rather than adopting a generic off-the-shelf LMS, Amer chose to build a custom platform shaped around how the academy actually runs a cohort — day-by-day course structure, task-based progress instead of passive video-watching, and an admin workflow built around reviewing and approving real enrollment applications rather than open self-signup. This kept the product aligned with the academy's practical, project-based teaching model instead of forcing the program to fit a generic course-platform template.
Features
- Role-based dashboards for admins and students
- Enrollment application and approval workflow
- Day-by-day course structure with materials and tasks
- Attendance and task grading
- Events, RSVPs, and messaging/email campaigns
- Analytics on registrations, enrollment, and engagement
Operational Impact
The platform is not a prototype — it is the system Sharvard Academy actually runs on today, handling real cohorts across 100+ registered students from 10+ universities, with 200+ event RSVPs and multiple cohorts completed. It replaced fragmented, manual coordination (spreadsheets, chat threads, ad-hoc scheduling) with one operational system for the academy.
Screenshots
Results
- 100+ registered students across 10+ universities
- 200+ event RSVPs
- Multiple cohorts completed, including graduation ceremonies and internship completions
- Live, in-production platform running real academy operations today