HackBuddy: Building an Open-Source AI Event Concierge After Receiving 500+ Hackathon Registrations

Description and use

HackBuddy is an open‑source AI concierge for events that automates attendee FAQs and provides organizers with analytics, leveraging local LLMs via Ollama and Arduino integration.

Problem

Community event organizers faced repetitive attendee questions and limited capacity, making it hard to manage over 500 registrations for Hacktoberfest Hack Day Mumbai.

Outcome

HackBuddy streamlined attendee communication, reduced organizer support time, and enabled data‑driven insights for a large hackathon event.

Workflow

• 1. Collect event data as Markdown files (FAQ, schedule, venue, sponsors, challenges).
• 2. Ingest Markdown into a searchable knowledge store.
• 3. Deploy local LLMs (Gemma, Qwen, Llama) via Ollama for cost‑effective inference.
• 4. Use Microsoft Agent Framework to orchestrate interactions between knowledge store, recommendation logic, and sponsor discovery.
• 5. Integrate Arduino UNO Q to display status LEDs and enable future physical interactions.
• 6. Deploy the .NET/Blazor Server application locally for organizers.
• 7. Provide attendees with AI concierge for FAQs, project guidance, and sponsor discovery.

Evidence

HackBuddy is an open-source AI event concierge built with .NET, Microsoft Agent Framework, Ollama, and Arduino.

Source

As our event registrations crossed 500, it became obvious that many of these interactions could be streamlined through a dedicated event AI assistant.

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HackBuddy acts as a digital event concierge that helps both attendees and organizers.

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Event-specific information is stored as Markdown files.

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Instead of relying on expensive cloud APIs, HackBuddy runs against local models through Ollama.

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