Inspiration

The inspiration for Companio came from a simple yet powerful realization: while travel is meant to be liberating and enriching, it remains inaccessible for many—especially individuals with disabilities. We saw an opportunity to combine empathy and technology to remove barriers and help people not only plan better but also connect meaningfully with others on the same journey. We asked ourselves: What if trip planning was designed from the ground up to be inclusive, collaborative, and smart? That question sparked the vision for Companio—a truly inclusive, ADA-compliant itinerary planning app with social features at its core.

What it does: Companio is an ADA-compliant itinerary planner with built-in social features, enabling travelers to:

-  AI-Driven ADA Complaint Recommendations: Developed an AI system that intelligently searches and recommends ADA-compliant hotels and attractions tailored to users with disabilities
- Dynamic SQL and Intelligent Ranking: Implemented AI-powered dynamic SQL generation and machine learning algorithms to rank and select top hotels and attractions based on ratings and accessibility.
-  Personalized Accessible Itinerary Creation: Automated the synthesis of hotel and attraction data into comprehensive, accessible, and personalized travel itineraries.
-  Advanced Accessibility Feature Detection: Enabled keyword recognition and ADA compliance filtering to match user-stated disability needs with appropriate accommodations and attractions.
- Structured, User-Friendly Results: Designed the system to display accessibility features prominently, ensuring users can easily identify suitable options.

How we built it: We used a mix of intuitive UI, lightweight databases, and large-scale datasets to bring Companio to life:

-  Frontend: Streamlit (Python) for ADA-compliant UI and form handling
- Backend: SQLite for user accounts, itineraries, and messages
-  TTS Integration: Browser-side speech synthesis for screen-reader-like feedback
-  PDF & ICS Export: FPDF and custom .ics file generation for offline use
- Data Intelligence: Databricks Delta Sharing for exploring accessible listings via Airbnb, Booking.com, and Google Maps datasets
-  LLM Integration: LangChain + ChatDatabricks agents for accessibility summarization and smart search

Challenges we ran into:

-  Managing team collaboration across different organizations and disciplines
-  Working within time constraints while integrating UI, external data and LLMs meaningfully
- Design thinking - Stepping in Persona - To think like our end user

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Created an inclusive, working prototype with multi-modal interaction and itinerary generation

What we learned

Our first introduction building AI agents in Databricks and Seeing it’s potential to accelerate App development
How to align as a team with different technical strengths
Practical use of LangChain agents + Databricks to bridge structured data with natural language interfaces

What's next for Companio - Your travel companion, made simple

- 🔄 Integrate real-time chat using Firebase or Supabase
- 🗺️ Launch map-based itinerary builder with accessible route suggestions
- 🌐 Connect with live data APIs for flights, weather, and transit
- 📱 Build a mobile-first version for wider accessibility
    - 🤝 Partner with disability advocacy groups to pilot and improve usability