WhatNowAI | Devpost

Map

Inspiration

WhatNowAI was inspired by personal experience. When Jawand relocated for an internship, he struggled to find meaningful activities after work. Although aware of various events, existing platforms overwhelmed him with too many choices, often leading to decision paralysis and defaulting to staying home. Recognizing many young professionals face similar challenges, we built WhatNowAI to offer a simpler, personalized approach for discovering engaging local activities.

What it does

WhatNowAI converts boredom into actionable plans, addressing loneliness and isolation by connecting users to events tailored specifically to them. It targets young professionals in unfamiliar cities, suggesting personalized activities based on user-provided interests, location, and personality insights gathered from their social media.

How we built it

We designed WhatNowAI with a modular web architecture using Flask (Python) for the backend and Bootstrap for a responsive frontend. Personalization features combine web scraping and the OpenAI API, while local event data is sourced through the Ticketmaster API. The modular structure enables easy integration of additional event sources in the future.

Challenges we ran into

Initially, we planned to scrape social media data extensively to enhance personalization but temporarily disabled this due to privacy and legal concerns. We also originally collected user locations automatically (with consent) but decided users should have more flexibility and control, opting instead for manual input.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're proud of quickly creating an effective solution to a genuine, real-world issue. We successfully integrated diverse technologies, including AI, web scraping, and APIs, into a cohesive application. Moreover, we leveraged advanced AI tools such as GitHub Copilot, significantly streamlining our development workflow. This project has inspired us to apply these innovative methods to future initiatives.

What we learned

This project greatly expanded our skills and collaboration capabilities. Team members deepened their experience with AI-driven development tools like GitHub Copilot, significantly improving coding efficiency and debugging speed. We also gained crucial insights into web scraping methodologies, especially regarding handling social media data with respect to privacy considerations. Overall, we learned how to effectively integrate multiple technologies to solve practical problems.

What's next for WhatNowAI

Our next steps include significantly enhancing the personalization and filtering functionality, moving beyond the current foundational implementation. We aim to refine event recommendations by incorporating more detailed user insights and expanding event data sources to offer a richer selection of activities. Additionally, we'll refine the location management system to improve compatibility and user flexibility.