EdTech Marketplace & Hardened Financial Ecosystem

Architecting the next-generation replacement for hittc.org—engineering a tri-surface ecosystem combining a hardened Go backend, a multi-currency course marketplace with LMS lesson delivery, and a double-entry financial ledger with WebAuthn passkey security.

Go BackendNext.js 16LMS & MarketplaceDouble-Entry LedgerWebAuthn & 2FAAutomated Payouts

Visit Live System

Double-EntryAudited Ledger & Automated Payout Engine

The Engineering Challenge

Heleads IT Training Centre (HITTC) provides vocational technology education, digital skills courses, and affiliate learning programs across West Africa and the global diaspora. Their legacy web presence (hittc.org) had reached the end of its architectural lifecycle, presenting severe operational and security roadblocks:

Vulnerabilities in Legacy Auth & Session Management: The legacy platform relied on unhardened, client-accessible session tokens and lacked multi-factor verification, leaving user accounts exposed to credential stuffing, session hijacking, and brute-force attempts.

Manual Financial Payouts & Disputed Reconciliations: Student affiliate commissions, task rewards, and vendor earnings were tracked without a formal double-entry accounting ledger. Reconciling weekly Mobile Money cashouts and bank payouts required manual tallying, creating operational backlogs and dispute risks.

Monolithic LMS & Vendor Limitations: Course materials and e-books were served through inflexible plugins that could not support third-party vendor curriculum builders, dynamic video lesson progression, or granular affiliate commission splits.

Regional Currency & Payment Barriers: Learners across Ghana, Nigeria, and international markets faced high payment friction due to the absence of automated IP-based currency localization (USD, GHS, NGN) and direct local payout rail integrations.

The Architecture & Solution

Spate SE was commissioned to design and engineer a complete, ground-up replacement for the legacy platform, structured across three purpose-built surfaces:

Hardened Core Backend (hittc-api): Engineered a high-throughput backend service in Go utilizing PostgreSQL connection pooling. Enforced strict OWASP security controls: sliding-window in-memory rate limiting, 15-minute short-lived access tokens paired with cryptographically secure HttpOnly refresh cookies, and parameterized queries for complete injection protection.

Passwordless WebAuthn & Mandatory TOTP: Integrated browser-native WebAuthn biometrics (Touch ID, Face ID, Windows Hello) for phishing-resistant student logins, while enforcing mandatory Time-based One-Time Passwords (TOTP 2FA) on all administrative accounts.

Double-Entry Financial & Payout Engine: Replaced static account balances with an immutable double-entry ledger. Every sale, commission split, task reward, and cashout writes paired debit and credit entries. Sensitive payout requests (MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash, and bank transfers) require secondary email-verified OTP authorization before dispatch.

Modern Learning Marketplace & Vendor Studio (hittc-hub): Rebuilt the student and vendor portal using Next.js. Features an intuitive course curriculum builder with lesson streaming, dynamic affiliate tier progression, and automatic IP geolocation that dynamically formats course pricing and wallet balances into local currencies (USD, GHS, NGN).

Isolated Backoffice Governance Panel (hittc-backoffice): Deployed a dedicated administrative portal isolated behind strict origin restrictions and TOTP multi-factor gates, providing staff with real-time course review queues, payout approval workflows, and interactive WebSocket support ticket workspaces.

Verified Outcomes

Hardened Zero-Trust Architecture: Eliminated legacy auth vulnerabilities through in-memory token handling, sliding-window rate limiting, and phishing-resistant WebAuthn passkeys.

Auditable Financial Ledger: Deployed a double-entry accounting system with automated Mobile Money and bank payout reconciliation, removing manual cashout friction.

Modular Multi-Vendor LMS: Empowered external educators to build, price, and distribute video courses with automated revenue-sharing splits.

Frictionless Cross-Border Payments: Enabled seamless student enrollment across West Africa and international regions via automated geo-currency detection and localized checkout rails.

Have an ambitious system to build?

We partner with engineering teams and ambitious founders to architect resilient software from the ground up.

Start a Project