NFC Placards to Large-Scale LEDs — Orchestrating a High-Traffic Expo Experience

Pranay Bhandare

4 Min

Oct 31, 2025

At large expos, where attention spans are fleeting and every booth competes for a few seconds of engagement, translating complex technology into intuitive, memorable experiences is a formidable challenge. When Reliance Jio set out to unveil its vision for JioBrain and the 5G Intelligent Village at the India Mobile Congress (IMC), the task was clear but intricate: make next-generation connectivity understandable, tangible, and emotionally resonant for both experts and lay visitors.

Ink In Caps took on this challenge — designing and building a multi-layered, high-traffic installation that combined storytelling, engineering, and visual immersion. The result was an experience that bridged technology and human connection through design precision and sensory depth.

Understanding the Challenge: Simplifying the Abstract

The concept of “intelligent” systems operating within rural communities can easily slip into abstraction when told through technical jargon or static visuals. At IMC — an event defined by scale, noise, and innovation overload — traditional formats like posters or screens would not suffice.

Visitors needed to see, touch, and feel how advanced connectivity could transform the day-to-day fabric of village life — from education and healthcare to agriculture and logistics.

That meant reimagining communication — not as a linear presentation, but as a spatial, interactive story that could explain complex networks through familiar symbols and culturally rooted experiences.

Designing for Human Intuition: The 2.5D Intelligent Village

At the heart of the experience was a projection-mapped, touch-sensitive 2.5D village — an isometric model calibrated to the finest detail. The layout captured the essence of a living Indian village: a marketplace buzzing with activity, a school where lessons streamed in real time, and fields where connected sensors optimized irrigation.

Each touchpoint within the model was mapped with projection cues, turning surfaces into responsive media layers. The moment a visitor placed their hand or tapped a building, the environment would react — lighting up with animation, sound, or data visualization to demonstrate how the system functioned in context.

The projection mapping was not simply aesthetic. It was a bridge between the digital and physical — a way to give form to networks, signals, and invisible flows of data. It humanized the unseen, turning intangible innovation into visible, relatable moments.

Interaction Beyond Screens: NFC Placards as Portals of Discovery

To complement the tactile village model, the experience extended into a network of NFC-enabled acrylic placards. Each placard represented a distinct use case of JioBrain or 5G — education, health, mobility, agriculture, and governance.

Visitors could pick up a placard and tap it against designated zones to trigger corresponding content on the LED walls. The interaction was instantaneous — transforming what could have been a passive learning moment into a personal discovery.

For the visitor, the simple gesture of tapping a placard became a metaphor for connectivity itself — an act of activation, of linking intent with outcome. For the brand, it was a way to make learning effortless, personal, and memorable amidst the high traffic and sensory overload of an expo floor.

Orchestrating Scale: Unity as the Central Nervous System

Behind this seamless choreography was a Unity-based system that orchestrated every media and hardware layer. It synchronized LED content, projection mapping, and NFC responses in real time — ensuring consistency and precision across multiple zones.

The challenge wasn’t just technical integration; it was resilience. High-traffic expos bring unpredictable conditions — from power fluctuations to simultaneous device interactions. The system needed to handle thousands of inputs daily without lag, data conflict, or visual misalignment.

Ink In Caps’ on-site engineering teams built redundancy into every core process — from media playback to NFC validation. This ensured uninterrupted operation even under pressure, where visitor turnover and interaction density were at their highest.

The backend design wasn’t about showcasing technology for its own sake. It was about building a robust, fail-safe experience that could maintain credibility and continuity no matter how intense the conditions became.

The Visual Command: Large-Scale LEDs as Story Windows

Surrounding the installation were high-resolution LED screens that acted as dynamic storytelling canvases. These screens were synchronized with the central Unity system to adapt visuals based on ongoing interactions.

If a visitor explored the healthcare placard, the LEDs would display stories of connected clinics and real-time diagnostics. If another interacted with the agriculture module, visuals of intelligent irrigation and smart farming would unfold across the walls.

This synchronization created a visual rhythm across the booth — turning the space into a breathing ecosystem that evolved with every touch and tap. It offered both micro and macro narratives: one visitor could explore granular functions while others absorbed the broader vision.

Engineering for Reality: Reliability Under Pressure

Executing such a dense, layered installation within an expo environment requires not just creativity but operational discipline. Every interaction point, cable, and sensor needed to perform consistently across three days, handling over 170,000 visitors.

Crowd behavior at expos can be unpredictable — simultaneous inputs, accidental touches, system resets, or network interference. The engineering team at Ink In Caps built contingency protocols for each possible failure point.

This included backup media servers, isolated power circuits for high-load sections, and modular NFC routing to prevent system congestion. In essence, what appeared to visitors as a seamless digital village was, beneath the surface, an intricate web of synchronized engineering and on-site responsiveness.

Measuring Success: Engagement Beyond Metrics

The installation’s impact was measured not just in numbers but in resonance. Over 170,000 visitors experienced the Intelligent Village firsthand — from curious attendees to industry leaders and Reliance executives.

The system sustained continuous engagement across the event’s duration, handling thousands of daily interactions without downtime. But perhaps the more profound measure of success lay in how effortlessly it translated complex infrastructure into stories that felt grounded and human.

Visitors could connect the dots — seeing technology not as distant or abstract but as a living part of everyday life. It bridged the divide between urban innovation and rural imagination, showing how advanced connectivity could empower communities across India.

Lessons in High-Stakes Experience Design

Every high-traffic installation is a negotiation between creativity and control. The JioBrain and 5G Intelligent Village project reaffirmed a few core principles that define successful experiential builds at scale:

1. Design for Clarity, Not Complexity When communicating sophisticated systems, simplicity wins. Every touchpoint should help the visitor understand a core idea — not overwhelm them with data.

2. Build Resilience Into Every Layer High engagement environments test infrastructure constantly. Reliability is not a technical checkbox — it’s a design priority.

3. Synchronization Creates Flow From projection mapping to LEDs, each component should move in harmony. Cohesion amplifies storytelling and sustains attention.

4. Human Context Makes Technology Relatable By embedding innovation within familiar cultural settings — like a village marketplace or classroom — abstract systems gain emotional weight and meaning.

5. Collaboration Is the Core Engine Projects of this scale require trust across teams — from concept design to on-ground engineers. Seamless execution is born from shared accountability.

The Broader Perspective: Designing for Tomorrow’s Audiences

As physical events evolve into hybrid, interactive ecosystems, the line between storytelling and system design continues to blur. The JioBrain and 5G Intelligent Village case highlights a growing expectation: audiences no longer want to be told — they want to experience.

This shift demands not just technical innovation but empathy — understanding how people absorb information, what draws them closer, and what sustains their curiosity.

It’s a reminder that the future of exhibitions, retail, and brand environments will belong to those who can orchestrate technology around human rhythm — turning every interaction into a living conversation between brand and audience.

Beyond the Exhibit: Building Meaningful Impact

The real success of such showcases lies in their afterlife — the insights they inspire, the conversations they spark, and the standards they set for immersive engagement.

For Reliance Jio, the Intelligent Village became more than an exhibit; it was a proof of how communication design can align with national-scale innovation narratives. For Ink In Caps, it reaffirmed the philosophy that great technology experiences are never about machines or mechanisms — they are about translation. Translating systems into stories. Translating signals into meaning. Translating innovation into trust.

In a space filled with dazzling screens and competing sounds, the JioBrain and 5G Intelligent Village installation stood out because it was not just interactive — it was intelligently human. Every element — from NFC placards to LED orchestration — existed to create coherence, to make technology visible through human touch.

When innovation meets intent, storytelling becomes more than spectacle. It becomes a shared understanding — one that connects people not just to ideas, but to possibilities.

And that, ultimately, is the quiet power of design done right.

About the Author

Pranay Bhandare
SEO Executive