Research Collective

One of the first mockups made for the project, for the registry of COVID resources.
Our logo, made during the hackathon
Registry, as actually implemented. Each row expands to reveal IPFS comments.

Inspiration

What if you developed a cured for a disease, but nobody believed you? What if it cure wasn't as profitable as the treatment, and never made it to market? What if we could collect data pertaining to the covid pandemic in real time, and trust that it isn't generated by bot farms or shady merchants?

What it does

We built a collection of Aragon DAOs used to curate information and issue verifiable credentials. The applications vary, but the general flow is that people can post or apply via a React website; the details get saved to IPFS, and then forwarded to a Telegram channel. If the request seems legit, a vote is initiated. If the vote passes, the item is listed, and the submitted receives a verifiable credential to support their claim.

How we built it

React. We used TheGraph to read data from Aragon votes. We used 3Box and Pinata to stash information on IPFS. We used Telegram to interface with the Aragon DAOs.

Challenges we ran into

ETH gas prices definitely pushed us into using IPFS more than we had imagined. We had hoped to put JSON into the Aragon Vote metadata but ran into limitations.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Connecting Aragon to Telegram was pretty exciting.

What we learned

Take nothing for granted.

What's next for Research Collective

We are going to be interviewing industry experts to figure out which market needs verifiable credentials the most sorely. We hope to issue credentials for a number of supply chain blockchains, and develop standards for use between DAOs towards a 'swarm of expert DAOs'. Lastly, we plan on using the technology presented to create an institutional review board for citizen scientists.