Placia Gh

Find any place in Ghana using natural language. From local businesses to hidden gems, Just ask naturally and let AI search for you

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Inspiration

Placia GH was born from a deeply personal experience. On the night I brought my newborn baby home, we found ourselves urgently needing baby food late at night. My wife's breastmilk wasn't flowing yet, and the nearby pharmacies were closed. I walked around for over an hour and a half in search of an open pharmacy with the right formula — unsure where to go, what was open, or what had what I needed. That frustration stuck with me.

In that moment, I wished for something smarter than Google Maps — a platform that truly understood what I needed, where I was, and how to help me. That night inspired Placia GH: a modern, AI-powered place finder that speaks your language, understands your intent, and helps you discover places with ease — especially in Ghana, where reliable local search tools are still limited.

What it does

Placia GH is a smart AI-driven platform that helps users discover places in Ghana using natural language, voice, and conversational AI — just like speaking to a local friend who knows everywhere.

  • 🧠 You can type or speak things like:

    “Find me a cheap hotel near Airport City”
    “Show pharmacies that are still open”
    “I want a romantic restaurant in Osu”

  • ✨ The AI understands your intent — whether you're looking for cheap, best rated, family-friendly, open now, or walking distance — and automatically filters the best results for you.

  • 🌍 You can explore Places via:

    • Map View, Card View, or List View
    • Trending and Featured Places
    • Voice-guided Tour of the App via ElevenLabs
    • Conversational Mode to refine search with follow-up questions like: > “What about ones open past 10pm?”
      > “Any with free WiFi?”

  • 🤖 You can even summarize place details with AI on each place's detail page, and ask questions about them.

  • 🔊 The first time you open the app, Alex, our ElevenLabs-powered virtual assistant, welcomes you and offers a voice-guided tour of the homepage — powered by generative speech.

Placia is more than a map. It’s a smart, conversational discovery experience.

How I built it

The platform was built primarily using Bolt.new, designed for building AI-first products. I combined this with a rich frontend and backend tech stack:

  • Frontend:

    • Next.js + React
    • TailwindCSS + Shadcn/ui
    • Browser Speech API for voice input

  • Backend and Data

    • Supabase (Auth, Database, Edge Functions, Vector Search)
    • Google Maps + Google Places API
    • OpenStreetMap + Leaflet
    • OpenAI (for search intent parsing and natural language understanding)
    • Groq AI (for ultra-fast conversational chat)
    • Resend (for dynamic, branded emails)

  • AI Integrations:

    • ElevenLabs Conversational Agent for voice-guided onboarding and in-app support
    • OpenAI + custom prompt engineering for search parsing and chat
    • Groq’s Mixtral model for blazing-fast conversational follow-ups
    • AI Summary Generator for place pages

I created a structured flag-based tour system (e.g., show-landing-search-input, show-featured-places) so the voice guide could drive dynamic interactions step-by-step.

Challenges I ran into

  • Heavy AI integration for the first time: Combining voice AI, chat AI, and vector-based search required careful orchestration.
  • Rate limits and cost management: AI APIs like OpenAI and ElevenLabs have token limits and pricing hurdles. I had to design around those creatively using Mixtral on Groq and pre-generated queries and assets.
  • Prompt engineering: Getting the AI to interpret natural language queries ("cheap chop bar near Adenta", "pharmacy still open") and also some local places names took iteration and custom intent parsers. Not perfect yet but okay for this MVP.
  • Device performance: Building this on Bolt.new while running high-performance AI tools strained the local dev environment.
  • Google data limitations: Google Maps is great, but often insufficient in Ghana. I had to enrich and extend the dataset and plan for crowdsourced contributions long-term.
  • Context handling in chat: Teaching the conversational flow to remember previous questions (e.g., “What about cheaper ones?”) was a challenge at some point, I had a bit of a breakthrough but it took time.

Accomplishments that I am proud of

  • Seamlessly combined voice, chat, and AI search into a single intuitive platform. Learned a lot.
  • Built a smart, Ghana-first place finder that goes beyond traditional map apps.
  • Created a beautiful and functional voice-guided onboarding experience using ElevenLabs.
  • Designed a dynamic structured tour system with flags that can scale across the entire app.
  • Built and deployed a working MVP with real search capabilities and intelligent results.
  • Successfully integrated Groq AI, Supabase Vectors, and OpenAI in a single conversational pipeline which also enhanced my learning.

What I learned

  • Good UX for AI requires more than powerful models — it needs guided intent, fallback flows, and memory.
  • Ghana and similar regions need tools that understand local language, context, and cultural behaviors — not just coordinates.
  • Conversational AI is not just a gimmick — it's a new UI paradigm, especially when combined with smart search, summarization, and follow-up understanding.
  • The Bolt.new platform enables rapid iteration and testing, but performance must be optimized when the app grows large.
  • Structuring interaction flows with semantic flags is incredibly powerful for dynamic tours and interactive AI responses.

What's next for Placia GH

  • Extend our data model beyond Google: We’ll allow users and businesses to contribute rich, verified location data.
  • Business Profiles 2.0: Let businesses use their Placia listing as a mini-website — with photos, reviews, offerings, hours, and AI chat.
  • Offline discovery: Cache data for offline-friendly place discovery in low-connectivity regions.
  • AI Concierge Agent: Help users plan trips, suggest itineraries, and answer personalized questions in Twi or English.
  • Voice-first Mobile App: Optimize for voice-driven discovery while walking or commuting.
  • Multi-turn Intent Engine: Power complex search flows with deep conversational context.
  • Multi-language AI: Add Twi, Ga, Hausa, and French support using ElevenLabs and local training data.
  • Auto-generated Place Videos: Use AI to turn place profiles into reels (voiceover + photo montage) to boost small business exposure.
  • AI Review Insights: Summarize user feedback, detect trends, and help businesses improve.

Placia GH is not just a search tool — it’s a movement to redefine how we discover places in Ghana and Africa, built on empathy, intelligence, and community in mind.

I am proud to present this at the Bolt Hackathon — and excited for what’s ahead.

Testing Instructions

You can explore most parts of the Placia GH platform without logging in — including:

  • Searching for places using natural language
  • Exploring homepage sections (Featured, Trending, Map View, etc.)
  • Conversational AI chat for place discovery
  • Summarizing place details with AI

However, the following features require authentication:

  • Leaving reviews
  • Uploading place photos
  • Adding places to favorites
  • Accessing the user dashboard

Test Login Access

To make testing easier, we’ve provided a Test Login option on the login screen:

  1. Click the “Test Login” button (no need to use personal credentials).
  2. You’ll be prompted to enter a PIN code.
  3. Use the PIN provided below to log in securely as a demo user.

🔐 Test PIN: 985678

Built With

  • eleven-labs
  • elevenlabs-generative-ai
  • google-places
  • groq
  • netlify
  • next.js
  • openai
  • react-email
  • react-query
  • react.js
  • resend
  • supabase
  • tailwindcss
  • typescript
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