Our problem statement is related to the duplicity of research proposals submitted to various funding agencies.
- As we all know, a typical research proposal can take weeks to months to even years to get approved, and one may not even get to know that their proposal is rejected and hold onto an empty hope. A very common cause for this is the fact that a proposal has to go through numerous stages before getting approved.
- First stage being submitting the proposal in a selected format and deciding all the relevant details like selecting a specific problem to solve or deciding which funding organization to specifically apply to.
- Next, the proposal is checked for plagiarism and then finally, it is peer reviewed and pushed for funding approval. As we can see, each stage of the process is important, however the first stage of formatting is not as pertinent.
- However, paraphrasing and a lot of other malpractices can go unnoticed when it comes to just plagiarism checks on a basic level. This leads to proposals which get stuck in this stage and not get approved.
- The main drawback is that the researcher doesn’t get any report as to what caused their proposal to not be approved. Consequently, this results in higher time and resource consumption with no fruitful results.
- Due to this, at times, a deserving candidate might not get funding, thus slowing down the growth of the research field.
- We hope to solve such problems with our project.
- A fully functional Web App that acts as a central platform to apply for funding for your projects and get them approved or rejected.
- We aim to help create and foster an environment of responsible and competitive research in our country.
- We hope to connect the innovative minds and their ideas within our country to the people who can give them the resources to actualize these ideas. For the same, we have tried to keep our UI/UX as simple as possible and are always open to any constructive feedback.
- Our base idea is to provide users with a fully functional Web App that acts a central platform for applying for funding that aims to use the current developments in decentralized storage architecture to provide them with a platform that allows them to upload or create their draft proposals and submit them for plagiarism checks, clearing which they will be submitted for consideration to fund.
- We use the modern MERN stack to store our user's details and drafts after encrypting the data via bcryptjs. We require a one-time registration on our software, and then they can access the platform at their leisure.
- Once the users have submitted a draft proposal, we use a custom-built, state-of-the-art NLP algorithm to check for plagiarism on 3 levels, and if the proposal clears all of them, it is forwarded th the relevant authorities for consideration for funding.
- Front-End: We used ReactJS and Chakra UI to create a simple, elegant and minimalist user interface that meets our design requirements and maximises efficiency.
- Back-End: We used several JS 'npm' packages, as well as NodeJS as a runtime environment to create an effective and effortless back-end module.
- Storage: We used the MongoDB database to store all the data except the funded papers, which are further pushed on the Ethereum Blockchain.
- NLP Model: Most importantly, we used various python libraries like NLTK and YAKE along with implementing the AHP algorithm to give unique weights to every section of the Research Proposal.
- Ensuring that at no place did we access our user's credentials.
- Coming up with a sound business plan for a project that can very well be in the public service domain.
- Overcoming various errors as we learned how to use the AHP Algorithm for the first time.
- Overcoming various CORS errors by trial and error when trying to integrate the back-end API with the front-end architecture.
- Reorienting ourselves constantly as we received feedback for the different new features we need to implement at each review.
- We faced cors error and we tried to resolve it.
- Our USP that we made innovative use of AHP and NLP libraries to create a custom, extremely efficient Plagiarism checker.
- Combine that with the minimalistic design and efficient software development, and we have the perfect funding applications submission software for our country.
- We have created a system in which the drafts are constantly rendered and the they are never stored without encryption.
- Moreover, ensuring smooth working of such a large project with these many components is a testament to our team spirit and target orientation.
- Learned how to use the AHP Algorithm.
- Various new ReactJS and NPM packages that we used at various places in the front and back-end.
- Implementing NodeJS and ExpressJS to store and retrieve data in such a complex system where we have made over 50 unique APIs.
- Trustless
- Zero Knowledge Architecture.
- Progressive Web App that is responsive on all platforms and devices.
- Custom AHP-based Plagiarism tool.
- Fully open-source with code transparency.
- Simple, minimalistic UI.
- Our core customer base consists of researchers looking for funding, and organizations that want to fund new projects.
- A pertinent example for the same is our evaluator, the UGC.
Our main revenue streams are:
- The cost charged for providing our product to any client organization.
- The token amounts that may be implemented as necessary.
- The unique, custom components that we created for our product can be monetized separately.
Most of our outlay will be for 2 core components:
- Buying the API Key licenses that are used at various places in our components.
- Scaling up Storage would require a significant outlay as well.
- Our project's end goal is to create one central, efficient platform for sifting through the various research proposals that are submitted to find the next great idea.
- While this technology starts as a simple Application screening software, we hope to increase its functionality to more different fields and organizations. One idea can be to also keep track of the actual development and progress level of every proposal that is funded and present on our software.
- Moreover, we hope to implement further functionalities and services that make the process of applying more efficient and simpler.