🌟 Inspiration In Coimbatore and many tier-2 cities, people often struggle to find the right professionals for home renovation, event shoots, or other local services. The process is messy — from asking friends to scrolling through outdated listings. We wanted to solve this with a simple idea: What if you could just say what you need — and instantly get matched to verified local pros who are actually available? That’s how SmartKovai was born.
🤖 What it does SmartKovai is an AI-powered local service matchmaker.
Users type in simple queries like: “I want to renovate my kitchen” or “Need a wedding photographer.”
Our local LLM interprets the request and matches them to relevant professionals nearby.
It then pings vendors on WhatsApp with the project details and asks:
“Are you available for this project with a budget of ₹X?”
If a vendor replies “Yes,” the system creates a project space for coordination — all inside a simple chat interface.
🛠️ How we built it Local LLM: We used a fine-tuned model (Mistral/LLaMA3) to understand intent from user queries and extract job type, location, and budget.
Vendor Matching: We tagged vendors with skills and areas of service and used similarity search for matching.
WhatsApp Messaging: Integrated simulated vendor replies via Twilio/Business API to check availability.
Frontend: Built a chat-style interface for users to input needs, view vendor responses, and manage the project.
🚧 Challenges we ran into Understanding informal language (code-mixed English/Tamil) in user queries
Lack of structured data from local vendors — many don’t have proper profiles or portfolios
Simulating WhatsApp messaging while staying within rate limits and without triggering spam detection
Balancing simplicity for users while handling complex vendor coordination under the hood
🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of Built an end-to-end functional demo within the hackathon timeframe
Created a smooth WhatsApp simulation for vendor availability
Designed a clean, intuitive chat UI for managing multi-vendor local projects
Proved that a local-first LLM can handle service matchmaking effectively
📚 What we learned LLMs can be extremely powerful even in hyperlocal, non-English-heavy contexts
Simplicity wins — users just want to ask and get help, not fill forms
Real-time availability checking via WhatsApp is more valuable than we expected
It’s possible to build a smart, usable system with minimal tech stack if the idea is focused
🚀 What's next for SmartKovai – AI-Powered Local Matchmaker for Services 📞 Voice input support for users who prefer speaking in local languages
🧑💼 Vendor dashboard with simple onboarding, availability toggle, and mini portfolios
📍 Expansion to other cities like Madurai, Trichy, and Salem
❤️ Trust layer with community reviews, ratings, and photo samples
💬 Deeper WhatsApp automation — payments, reminders, follow-ups — all from the chat
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