Zellers AI Avurudu Avatar – Interactive Generative AI Campaign & Real-Time Voting Platform
Zellers AI Avurudu Avatar is an innovative, full-stack digital campaign platform and real-time public voting ecosystem engineered for Zellers Chocolates by ArtsLab Creatives to celebrate the sacred Sinhala and Tamil New Year (Aluth Avurudu) in Sri Lanka. Pioneering the nation's first-ever digital "AI Avurudu Kumara & Kumariya" competition, the platform engaged tens of thousands of island-wide participants by seamlessly transforming their uploaded portraits into hyper-personalized, culturally authentic traditional festival avatars. Backed by a high-concurrency Node.js/Express API, dual-gateway OTP authentication, and a tamper-resistant community voting gallery, the platform eliminated fraudulent interactions while orchestrating an automated end-to-end journey from portrait capture to viral festive leaderboards.
🌟 Key Features:
Dual-Channel OTP Authentication (SMS & WhatsApp): Resilient, passwordless onboarding integrated with both the SMS160 gateway and custom WhatsApp messaging APIs. Employs SHA/Bcrypt hashed one-time passwords, MongoDB TTL (Time-To-Live) cache auto-expiry, and strict IP-based rate limiting to prevent automated spam and credential abuse behind reverse proxies.
4-Step Guided Campaign Journey: A smooth, interactive multi-step funnel navigating users through mobile number verification, profile customization (display name and gender routing), high-resolution photo ingestion, and an interactive Avurudu cultural personality quiz linked to Zellers chocolate flavors.
Smart In-Browser Media Ingestion: In-browser camera snapshot capture and local file upload pipeline with client-side image validation, dimension optimization, file size checks, and performance tracking to guarantee high-fidelity inputs for avatar synthesis.
AI Cultural Avatar Generation Pipeline: Automated pipeline that maps facial landmarks and user-selected cultural attributes onto traditional Sri Lankan festive attire (Avurudu Kumara royal jackets and Kumariya traditional costumes), delivering instant download-ready festive avatars.
Tamper-Resistant Public Voting Gallery: High-performance community voting portal enforcing a strict "one-vote-per-entry" rule with inline OTP verification to eliminate ballot-stuffing, bot voting, and unfair competition manipulation.
Real-Time Aggregation & Mixed Leaderboards: Optimized MongoDB aggregation pipelines providing low-latency, mixed-gender leaderboards and paginated query results with instant category filtering across All, Kumara, Kumariya, and Top Voted contestants.
Enterprise Telemetry & Funnel Analytics: Over 550 lines of custom TypeScript analytics instrumentation dispatching 40+ granular event triggers across 11 lifecycle categories into Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google Tag Manager (GTM), and Microsoft Clarity session replay for continuous drop-off and conversion rate optimization.
JWT Security & Rotating Server Auditing: Stateless 14-day JSON Web Token (JWT) session security paired with Morgan-driven auto-rotating logging infrastructure (`logs/server.log`) for rapid production diagnostics and operational audit trails.
🛠️ Technologies Used:
Next.js 16 (App Router & Server-Side Rendering)
TypeScript
React 19 / React DOM
Node.js & Express.js REST API
MongoDB & Mongoose (TTL Indices & Aggregation Pipelines)
JSON Web Tokens (JWT) & Bcrypt.js Cryptographic Security
SMS160 Gateway & WhatsApp Cloud Messaging API
Tailwind CSS v4 & Framer Motion (Adaptive Mesh Gradients & Micro-Interactions)
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) & Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Microsoft Clarity (Heatmaps & User Session Replay)
Express-Rate-Limit & Morgan Rotating Logger
Lucide React Iconography
📦 Highlights:
• Sri Lanka's First AI-Powered National Avurudu Kumara & Kumariya Digital Campaign
• Dual-Channel Passwordless Onboarding via SMS160 & WhatsApp Cloud API
• Tamper-Proof One-Vote-Per-Post Community Voting Protected by In-Modal OTP
• Sub-Second Real-Time Leaderboards Powered by High-Performance MongoDB Aggregations
• 4-Step Gamified Campaign Funnel Matching Traditional Quiz Answers to Chocolate Flavors
• Custom 40+ Event Analytics Telemetry Pipeline via GA4, GTM & Microsoft Clarity
• In-Browser Camera & File Upload Engine with Client-Side Media Optimization
• Scalable Cloud Architecture with Reverse Proxy IP Trust & TTL Cache Invalidation
🔖 Skills:
Full-Stack Web Engineering (Next.js 16 App Router + Node.js/Express)
Generative AI Campaign Architecture & Image Processing Pipelines
Database Performance Tuning & MongoDB Aggregation Pipelines
Telecommunications & Dual Messaging Gateway Integration (SMS & WhatsApp OTP)
Anti-Fraud Architecture, Rate Limiting & Cryptographic Security (JWT, Bcrypt, TTL)
Advanced Behavioral Analytics, Funnel Optimization & Telemetry (GA4, GTM, Clarity)
Mobile-First Responsive UI/UX Design & Fluid Micro-Animations (Tailwind v4 + Framer Motion)
High-Concurrency Viral Campaign Scaling & Cloud Production Reliability
