orion
Decentralizing Knowledge, Rewarding Wisdom
The problem orion solves
Academic publishing today is broken. Researchers spend months or years creating valuable knowledge, but publishers take all the money while giving authors nothing. Papers sit behind expensive paywalls ($30-50 each) that most people can't afford, and universities pay up to $40,000 yearly for subscriptions. Getting published takes over a year and often requires paying thousands in fees. When papers are rejected, authors must start the entire process over. This system keeps valuable research locked away from people who need it, slows down scientific progress, and creates unfair financial barriers for both authors and readers. Orion fixes this by creating a fair, fast, and affordable way to share and access research.
Challenges we ran into
Smart Contract State Management: Paper revision system initially marked papers as "decided" incorrectly. Solved by redesigning our paper lifecycle states and creating explicit revision tracking.
Gas Cost Optimization: Verification functions consumed excessive gas. Reduced costs by 78% by moving verification comments to event logs rather than on-chain storage.
AI-Blockchain Integration: Connecting off-chain ML plagiarism detection with on-chain contracts was difficult. Created a custom oracle solution with decentralized verification.
RAG System Performance: Initial query latency exceeded 15 seconds. Implemented hierarchical clustering and edge caching to reduce response time to under 2 seconds.
User Experience Barriers: Academic users struggled with crypto wallets. Developed simplified onboarding with email-based wallets and fiat payment options while maintaining blockchain benefits.
Tracks Applied (1)
Edu Chain Semester 3 Hackathon
EDU Chain