What is Portals?

Portals is a next-generation event platform designed to make hosting and joining events seamless, engaging, and intelligent.

The platform supports both online and offline events, providing organizers and speakers with powerful real-time management tools — while giving attendees an interactive, AI-enhanced event experience.

Built with a modern full-stack architecture, Portals brings together live streaming, real-time audience interaction, and LLM-powered subtitles & transcripts into one unified system.

Challenge

Building a real-time, full-featured event management ecosystem required solving complex synchronization and interaction challenges:

• Supporting two event modes (online & offline) within the same UX flow
• Delivering real-time synchronization between organizer dashboards and attendee screens via Socket.IO
• Integrating AI-generated subtitles and transcripts seamlessly with live video streams
• Managing multi-role access for organizers, speakers, and attendees with fine-grained permissions
• Handling high user concurrency for chat, polls, questions, and reactions during large-scale events

What We Did

Our team engineered a production-ready platform combining advanced event management and live interactivity:

• Organizer & Speaker Dashboards: Create, schedule, and control event sessions with real-time updates to attendee views
• Real-time Livestream Experience: Stream video with automatic subtitles and transcript generation using LLMs
• Audience Interaction: Live Q&A, polls, topic suggestions, reactions, and messaging — all synchronized in real time via Socket.IO
• Offline Mode Support: Enable event check-ins, schedules, and speaker content management for on-site participants
• Scalable Backend: NestJS microservice architecture with PostgreSQL & Prisma ensuring low-latency and maintainable data flow

Stack & Tools

• Frontend: Next.js 15, TailwindCSS, HeroUI, Framer Motion
• Backend: NestJS + Socket.IO, Prisma, PostgreSQL
• Authentication: Clerk / NextAuth (configurable)
• AI/Realtime: LLM-based subtitle & transcript engine, WebSocket synchronization
• Deployment: Dockerized services hosted on VPS / Vercel

Outcome

• Enabled smooth, interactive hybrid events with synchronized updates across all roles
• Delivered sub-second latency on chat, polls, and reactions for large audiences
• Integrated LLM-powered transcripts improving accessibility and content reusability
• Received positive feedback from organizers and speakers for real-time control tools
• Currently being expanded with monetization modules and event analytics dashboards

What I Learned

• Designing resilient real-time systems using Socket.IO and reactive front-end state management
• Architecting multi-role event workflows balancing performance and usability
• Integrating AI capabilities (subtitles, transcripts) into live streaming environments
• Building maintainable backend services with NestJS, Prisma, and PostgreSQL
• Thinking product-first: combining technical scalability with audience experience

Final Thoughts

Portals showcases how modern web technologies and AI can transform the event experience — making it more accessible, interactive, and data-driven.

From intimate workshops to large hybrid conferences, Portals provides the foundation for a smarter event ecosystem.

🚀 The platform is now entering beta rollout with live deployments for partner organizers.

Screenshots