Nexo

Framing the Problem

Tech conferences are full of value, but finding that value is hard. Attendees face crowded agendas, too many people to meet, and limited time to decide what matters. Remote and hybrid attendees often miss the “hallway track” entirely. This affects attendees, organizers, speakers, sponsors, and communities because meaningful discovery is what makes an event worth attending.

Idea Explanation

Nexo is a tech event planner that turns conference overwhelm into a focused, explained plan. Attendees share their role, goals, interests, and attendance mode, then Nexo recommends relevant sessions, people, sponsors, and communities. Every recommendation includes a clear “why this matters,” so users understand the reason behind each match instead of trusting a black box.

Implementation

Nexo is built with React, TypeScript, Vite, and KendoReact. The frontend uses KendoReact components for forms, cards, dialogs, grids, charts, and notifications. For the hackathon demo, the app runs from JSON seed data so judges can test the full experience without external setup. The planner reads event, session, profile, sponsor, and community data from the seed, applies deterministic matching logic, and displays recommendations with explanations. Supabase is prepared as an optional live backend path, but the final demo is reliable offline.

Challenges

The biggest challenge was balancing scope with time. The idea could easily become a full conference platform with auth, chat, ticketing, live sessions, and sponsor CRM. I narrowed the MVP to the core value: explainable discovery and planning. Another challenge was making the demo reliable, so I moved the final experience to JSON seed data instead of depending on live database setup during judging.

Accomplishments

I built an end-to-end product flow: landing page, event discovery, attendee planner, transparent recommendations, intro drafts, saved plan, profile flow, and organizer insights. I also learned how to keep the product honest by avoiding overclaims around AI and focusing on explainable matching. The project uses KendoReact throughout the UI and creates value for multiple event stakeholders, not just attendees.

Next Steps

Next, I would add live session chat, email notification preferences, and deeper event-specific profiles so users can act as attendees, speakers, sponsors, or community partners depending on the event. I would also connect the JSON demo data to a production Supabase backend, improve organizer analytics, and add richer sponsor/community matching while keeping privacy and transparency at the center.