DAIS Virtual Challenge 2026: Weather-Aware Event Recommendation & Safety Advisory using Databricks

[cielle_stcl]

I'm exploring an idea that combines event discovery, weather intelligence, and safety awareness into a single AI-powered experience built on Databricks.

The Problem

When people travel or plan activities, they often face three common challenges:

1. Activities are not always weather-suitable: eg hiking during heavy rain periods
2. Event information is difficult to discover due to printed brochures. As a result low attendance rate.
3. Safety advisories are often unstructured eg: avoid waterfall visits during rainy season.

These messages are rarely centralized and are difficult for visitors to discover.

Proposed Solution

Build a Databricks-powered application that recommends activities based on:

• Destination country/location
• Visiting date
• Weather forecast
• Event availability
• Safety advisories

The system can provide recommendations such as:

✅ Outdoor activities when weather is favorable

⚠️ Alternative indoor activities during poor weather

🚫 Safety warnings for activities that may pose risks under certain conditions

Technical Approach

Using Databricks as the unified platform:

1. Data Sources

Structured Data

• Event catalog
• Event schedules
• Location information

Semi-Structured Data

• Weather forecast APIs

Unstructured Data

• Tourism brochures
• Activity descriptions
• Safety notices
• Travel advisories

1. AI Agents

Event Recommendation Agent (used gpt-4 model)

• Uses weather forecasts
• Retrieves events and activities (applied rag with FAISS vector store + conversational memory to understand the unstructured data content)
• Considers safety advisories
• Produces weather-aware recommendations

Poster Generation Agent (used gpt-image-1 model)

• Creates marketing posters
• Generates event promotion content
• Improves visibility for local activities

Databricks Components

• Lakehouse architecture for unified data storage
• Databricks Apps for web and chat interfaces
• Databricks Volumes for brochure and document storage
• Open LLMs hosted within Databricks
• API integrations for weather forecasts

Example User Experience

1. User Prompt

"I'm visiting Japan in November with my family. What activities do you recommend?"

1. AI Response

• Recommended seasonal events
• Weather outlook
• Outdoor suitability score
• Indoor alternatives
• Safety advisories
• Suggested itinerary
• Poster with associated detail for marketing posting

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions.

Demo: demo