Plenia

Inspiration

Conferences and professional events offer valuable opportunities to learn, discover new technologies, and build professional connections. However, attendees often face common problems: finding relevant talks, navigating large venues, keeping track of schedules, and networking efficiently with other participants.

We wanted to create a platform that would simplify the entire conference experience. Our goal was to combine event management, interactive navigation, personalized content, and networking into a single application that benefits organizers, exhibitors, speakers, and attendees alike.

What it does

Plenia is a smart conference management and networking platform.

The platform enables organizers to create and manage events, upload venue maps, configure rooms and exhibition stands, schedule talks, and manage event content.

Organizers can create events, approve the requests from the Companies and schedule the timeline with an AI-assisted platform.

Attendees can:

Join an event through a QR code
Explore an interactive venue map and see the timeline in real-time of all the stuffs during the event
Discover talks and speakers directly into the map and receive notifications based on their interests
Join specific talks and listen the real-time translation of them
Network with other attendees through QR-code exchanges

Companies can manage interactive stands, publish materials and organize some speeches with their speakers.

How we built it

We designed Plenia as a modular and microservice scalable platform.

Architecture

The system is composed of:

Mobile application (mainly for Attendees, for real time map, event timeline and push notifications)
Web Application (for event submission and call for speakers)
Microservices backend each built with Docker with his own database (each one uses different technologies and languages, communicates with HTTP requests), and Docker Swarm as an orchestrator
Traefik used as API gateway to route the requests and authenticate the users

Main Services

We divided the application into several logical domains:

User Management
Event Management
Interactive Map Management
Stand Management
Speech and Speaker Management
Agenda Management
Networking Management
Notification System

Challenges we ran into

Designing a flexible venue map

Conference venues can vary greatly in size and structure. Creating a map system capable of supporting different layouts while remaining easy to configure was one of the most difficult aspects of the project.

Managing complex relationships

The platform contains many interconnected entities:

Events
Rooms
Speakers
Talks
Companies
Stands
Attendees

Designing a data model that remains maintainable and scalable required careful planning.

Personalization

Generating meaningful recommendations and notifications based on user interests required us to think carefully about how user preferences are collected and associated with conference content.

Future scalability

We wanted the platform to support future AI-based features without requiring major architectural changes. This led us to adopt a modular service-oriented design from the beginning.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are particularly proud of:

Creating a complete conference ecosystem instead of a simple event application
Designing an interactive venue map integrated with conference activities
Implementing QR-based networking to simplify professional interactions
Building a scalable architecture capable of supporting future intelligent features
Integrating event management, navigation, networking, and engagement into a single platform

What we learned

This project taught us several important lessons.

From a technical perspective, we learned how to design systems composed of multiple interconnected services and user roles. We also gained experience in data modeling, API design, file management, and scalable backend architectures.

From a product perspective, we learned that usability is often more important than adding new features. Conference attendees need quick access to information, intuitive navigation, and seamless interactions.

We also learned the importance of designing extensible architectures. By separating responsibilities into distinct services, we can evolve the platform without affecting existing functionality.

What's next for Plenia

Our roadmap includes several advanced features:

AI-Powered Features

Automatic venue map generation from floor plans
Live speech translation
Automatic speech summarization
Smart recommendations for talks and networking opportunities

Enhanced Event Experience

Real-time indoor navigation
Live audience interaction tools
Advanced analytics for organizers

Scalability

We plan to support larger conferences and exhibitions by introducing event-driven communication between services and additional real-time capabilities.

Our vision is to transform Plenia into a complete intelligent platform for conferences, trade shows, and professional networking events worldwide.