HALLWAY

Framing the Problem

Conferences have a timeline: talks, gaps, dinner, evening events. But attendees still spend the morning deciding where to go, while meeting the right people is mostly left to hallway luck.

Hallway organizes that timeline around the attendee.

Idea Explanation

Attendees answer a few quick questions about why they are there and what they are interested in. In about 45 seconds, Hallway builds a personalized conference day.

It recommends the talks worth attending and creates a schedule around them.

Then it uses the free gaps in that schedule to suggest people worth meeting and books short intros into times that work for both attendees. Each intro comes with a simple opener, so there is no awkward browsing or swiping.

For the evening, Hallway places attendees into small groups that actually fit their interests.

The key idea is that scheduling and networking are connected. The talks create the gaps, and the gaps become opportunities to meet the right people.

Implementation

We built Hallway as a mobile-first React, TypeScript, and Vite SPA.

The UI is built fully with KendoReact. We used the Scheduler, Grid, Charts, Conversational UI, Chips, Dialogs, Cards, BottomNavigation, and more. In total, we used around 25 components from 14 Kendo packages, without adding another UI library.

A big part of the work was making Kendo feel like our own product instead of a default component demo. We restyled it into a lime-on-black brand using CSS variables and .k-* overrides.

For the backend, we used Supabase with anonymous auth, Postgres, RLS, and Realtime for live chat and intros.

We also built edge functions for AI scheduling, icebreakers, deterministic matching, and evening group creation.

Challenges

The hardest part was narrowing the idea and cutting scope. At first, we tried to do too much. Once we focused on the conference timeline, the product became much clearer.

Another challenge was making every screen use KendoReact while still giving the app its own visual identity.

Accomplishments and Learnings

We built a working end-to-end prototype that connects scheduling, networking, chat, and evening groups into one flow.

We learned how important focus is in a hackathon-style project. The product improved a lot once we stopped adding ideas and started making the core experience feel complete.

We also learned how far a component library can be pushed when the design system is customized properly.

Next Steps

The next step is to make the matching smarter with better attendee preferences and richer conference data.

We would also improve the schedule generation, add stronger calendar syncing, and test the product with real conference attendees to see where the flow feels useful and where it needs to be simplified.