DeSci Kolkata - A Humble Beginning in The World of Education, Science & Research in India

It was a fine Tuesday morning in early spring, when a two researchers from two different parts of the globe initiated a long awaited event. This event aimed to introduce the world of decentralized science, which is a revolutionary movement in the community of researchers the world over. Since early 2022, this movement has ignited a radical change in the way science and research works, and many scientists/researchers are now able to directly serve the public with their work through a new and growing peer to peer economy.

DeSci Kolkata Ideathon 2024 was unveiled by Dr. Jelani Clarke on March 5 2024, who is a neuroimmunologist and executive lead at DeSci.World. Hosted by Avimanyu Bandyopadhyay, it was an extremely fascinating deep dive into the a new world of science and technology, where so many new concepts were discussed and explored after introducing DeSci and an overview of the four day event. As the discussion followed, two young minds joined in to the discussion as local attendees: Pranay Patil and Dhiraj Wani, who had travelled by train all the way from Jalgaon, Maharashtra to Kolkata, West Bengal to attend the event.

It was incredible to witness the myriad of topics that were discussed by the four, which graciously followed our proposed ideathon format, where multiples ideas were exchanged on the spot, unlike traditional conferences.

The next talk was on introducing Open Science and DeSci Across All Educational Levels by Dr. Suramya Asthana, who is a cell biologist specializing in longevity and age-related diseases at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. After an introduction to initiatives such as SciHub, BioRxiv, medRxiv, eLife and many others as shown in the discussion below, a great conversation followed with intriguing questions that addressed different problems and challenges that can be solved by Open Science and DeSci.

One very important point for open discussion raised by Dr. Suramya was about the involvement of much younger students who are studying not just science but many other subjects at schools. Through conversation initiated by Anand Rupam, we talked about how digital library initiatives by the government that can be helpful through the introduction of open frameworks in the education system. Since this is a very important topic, we look forward to holding an exclusive discussion in a future meetup and would also like to invite Delroy who was one of our next speakers. The reason being exploring the possibilities to explore ways to expand web3 in academia from higher towards lower academic levels, with the primary goal of helping school students with different areas of interest.

Avimanyu Bandyopadhyay, a decentralized researcher from Kolkata who works with NuNet as a Systems Scientist next talked about financial independence through a DeSci cycle, and the basic idea behind creating a world of peer to peer science. A very informal conversation followed next, as is the theme of this educational ideathon, where new ideas continued to be exchanged in an informal setting.

Delroy Frazer began his journey in technology from the world of web2 and transitioned to web3 as a founder of a decentralized publishing platform called NobleBlocks. We had a discussion about NobleBlocks with a series of interesting questions about the technologies that empower the platform in the next talk. We learnt about how the Internet Computer blockchain empowers NobleBlocks. Delroy explained how the Nobl token empowers DeSci and enables a new economy in the world of academic publishing through decentralized journals.

The next talk was quite an inspirational one, as we explored the journey of Suraj Chawla who is a physicist turned entrepreneur and the founder of GPUnet. It was a deep dive into a personal journey into science, research and technology.

Finally, post the lunch session, and before day 1 concluded, we witnessed a remarkable talk by Swift Evo, who is the founder of DeSci Asia and also has working experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He talked about the foundational principles behind decentralized science focusing on education and research.

The event would have been impossible without the kind collab by Jennifer Bourke, marketing and community lead at NuNet, who very patiently co-ordinated and helped us organize the events as per our dynamic agenda through all the four days.

Please stay tuned for the next parts in this series where we will be talking about day 2, 3, and 4. Thank you for reading and we look forward to covering the next day's talks. DeSci Kolkata was sponsored by NuNet and supported by DeSci World and DeSci Asia.