Project Documentation: ConferenceCast

Subtitle: Every room is a channel. Every session is a broadcast.

Project Links

• Demo Video: https://youtu.be/iy1dgo9XXC0

• Live Demo: https://tejasvi-nagendrappa.github.io/conference-cast/

• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/tejasvi-nagendrappa/conference-cast

1. The Problem

You pay €500 to attend a conference. Five talks run simultaneously. You pick one at random, sit through it, and later find out the talk in Room B was exactly what you needed.

That moment of "I missed the right talk" is something every developer has felt:

• For Attendees: Remote and in-person attendees face the same problem with five simultaneous streams and zero guidance.

• For Organisers: Events are run completely blind. There is no real-time view of which rooms are packed, where Q&A is spiking, or where they are about to lose an audience.

Multi-track conferences are fundamentally an information problem.

2. The Solution

ConferenceCast applies a TV broadcast metaphor to tech conferences. Attendees get an AI-powered programme guide, while organisers gain access to a real-time control room dashboard.

2.1 For Attendees

• AI-Personalised Lineup: Sessions are scored 0–99 against your track interests and experience level, complete with a plain-English "why this matches you" explanation.

• LIVE Tab: Displays all currently broadcasting sessions in a grid. Click any card to expand an inline video player and a live Q&A panel without leaving the page. The most-watched session automatically receives a 🔥 Trending badge.

• UPCOMING Tab: Sessions are grouped by time slot with live countdown timers. A toast notification fires 2 minutes before any bookmarked or relevant session starts.

• GUIDE Tab: A full horizontal Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) timeline (09:00–13:00), colour-coded by channel, featuring a live NOW indicator. Ended sessions stay visible so in-person attendees can easily find missed tracks and watch recordings later.

2.2 For Organisers (/control-room)

• Real-Time KPIs: Monitored via trend arrows tracking total live viewers, average room capacity, and Q&A activity rates.

• "Now Broadcasting" Strip: Displays speaker avatars with live pulse dots, alongside per-channel viewer counts and room fill rates.

• Live Viewership Chart: An area chart mapped across all 5 channels that updates every 3 seconds.

• Alert Feed: Generates capacity warnings, Q&A spikes, and low-attendance flags so organisers can act before a room overflows or a talk loses its audience.

3. Value Proposition

4. Tech Stack

4.1 Framework & Infrastructure

• Framework: React 18 + TypeScript

• Build Tool: Vite

• State Management: Zustand

• Routing: React Router v6 (HashRouter)

• Hosting: GitHub Pages

4.2 KendoReact Components Used

• Chart Core: Chart / ChartSeries / ChartCategoryAxis / ChartValueAxis — Powers the live viewership area chart in the Control Room.

• Input: Drives the main session search bar.

• Button: Handles the personalise drawer trigger and clearing searches.

• Chip: Controls the track filter bar (React / JS / DevOps / UX / Perf / AI).

• ProgressBar: Visualizes room capacity limits on live session cards.

• Notification: Notification / NotificationGroup — Deploys the 2-minute session start toasts.

• Tooltip: Reveals deep session descriptions on hover within the EPG timeline.

5. What I Built

This project is a fully functional prototype driven by simulated real-time data. It demonstrates what the platform looks like when integrated with real conference infrastructure (ticketing systems, live stream URLs, and session CMS).

Note on the AI Engine: The recommendation engine is entirely deterministic. It matches session tracks against attendee levels to produce a 0–99 score and label (Top Pick / Great Match / Good Fit / Explore). It requires no external API calls and works completely offline.

6. Future Scope

• CMS Integration: Automatically pull live stream URLs and session data from platforms like Sessionize or Hopin.

• Live Ticketing: Connect to real ticketing and check-in data for perfectly accurate physical attendance numbers.

• Automated VOD: Auto-populate Video-on-Demand links the moment recordings are published for a seamless "missed it? watch it" loop.

• Smart Push Notifications: Alert users instantly via push notifications for any sessions the AI marks as a Top Pick.

• Organiser Actions: Allow managers to send direct room alerts or flag capacity issues straight to venue staff from the Control Room dashboard.

7. Author

• Name: Tejasvi Nagendrappa

• Profile: github.com/tejasvi-nagendrappa