CRE8R DAO AMA with Therapoid
Primer: Therapoid is a message board system that caters specifically to the scientific community. It serves as a gateway to the broader scientific ecosystem, like grants, IP, etc. Find out more about them in this exclusive interview with the founders of Therapoid.
Team
Background of the Team
Therapoid (formerly known as Open Therapeutics) has a unique team that is divided into three parts:
Operational
Product development
Scientific
There is some overlap between the Operational and Scientific divisions
Operational
Jason E. Barkeloo
Founder. 5X entrepreneur. Former US Army officer running a research lab
Former science instructor and educator
Patented serial entrepreneur
$1.8M exit to pubco
Nobel Prize in sustainable cleantech nominee via Pilus Energy
Raised over $4M for Therapoid
Dr. Li Guo
Consulting Chief Science Officer – Former neuro researcher at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
Ph.D. from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)
Worked with Jason in the Pilus Energy startup
Nick Lallo
Scientific Community Manager
Biomedical Technology B.S. from the University of Cincinnati
Worked as an intern with the Company then joined
Greg Reinbach
Consulting Network Engineer
Built World Food Programme network
Product Development
Global software development firm V2Soft, Inc., which is their Strategic partner
Scientific Team
Made up of twenty-two early, mid, and late career scientists
Represents hundreds of years of research and publications
Team represents many scientific disciplines, cultures, genders, and ethnicities
Origin story behind Therapoid
Pilus Energy, the company that the team started up, had been acquired
After the acquisition, Jason discovered that nearly $4T (trillion) dollars’ worth of IP goes unused
The IP simply costs money to the holders who gain no benefit from it
The team agreed to focus Therapoid upon in-licensing the unused IP and crowd-advancing it under a Creative Commons 4.0 ShareAlike licence model
Therapoid was built to provide an environment where the global scientific community could advance the IP for the betterment of the world
Project funding
Has raised nearly $5M over its development life
Investors are all angels, mostly from the Midwest, US. Some are from other places
60% of the investors are minorities with nearly 50% of all the investors being women
Project
Therapoid in a nutshell
Therapoid is, at first glance, an advanced Reddit-like message boards product
The Forums are immediately recognized as an advanced message board system that enables the issuance of digital object identifiers (DOIs) for message postings the community believes are of intellectual value
The Forums are the default entry point into a broader scientific ecosystem that includes IP, grants, free equipment, knowledge center, and listserv.
A preprint server will roll-out soon
The user must opt-in to see any other features within Therapoid. This is done in the Profile.
One might think of Therapoid as a think-tank that enables students and scientists to customize their experience.
Business model
After the crowd of scientists and students is developed, multiple revenue streams emerge
There are two being initially launched:
Advertisements
Advertisements can be found throughout the free equipment section of Therapoid
A user will have to opt in to see the free equipment section under the user’s profile and most users will opt in to do so
ScienceCoins will ultimately play a role here in enabling the shipping and maintenance of the equipment
Selling recruiters access to users
Significant shortage of scientists, particularly in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines
No single place for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Humanities, and Math (STEAHM) recruiters to find candidates
Therapoid provides recruiters with a GitHub/LinkedIn-like environment from which to recruit candidates.
Unique selling proposition
Therapoid is designed to be a one-stop-shop for scientists/students to aggregate and be recruited for opportunities by being seen in an open science platform
The ecosystem design creates a think-tank from which outputs can be enjoyed by the global community
There is no other end-to-end open science platform that awards open collaboration with DOIs, utility tokens, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and micro-grants
Which scientific fields does Therapoid cater to?
Therapoid caters to all scientific fields and disciplines
Launching on Polygon Network
Jason, who has been in blockchain since 2013/14 was committed to Ethereum
Through discussions with the product development engineering team at V2Soft, it was decided to go along with Polygon
The scalability, programmability, transaction speeds and throughput, the depth of the community, and gas fees were driving forces in the decision
It helps that Polygon was scaling with other organizations such as Nike, Disney, etc.
Some partners/scientific institutions that Therapoid works with
Therapoid collect IP from organizations ranging from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Research Institute of Nationwide Children’s Hospital to universities such as Bologna
Their alliance with IPwe furthers this effort
The alliance with the American Impact Capital Foundation provides a pathway for ScienceCoins (SCI) awardees to donate their SCI to charities and socially conscious efforts
The partnership with V2Soft has provided Therapoid with a top-notch software development team that has a global footprint
Quality control of user’s content in Therapoid
A significant difference between Therapoid and other social media platforms is the curation of content and engagement by the community
This is the essence of an open science effort – control by the community, which acts similarly to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)
Due to the nature of the scientific culture, the members are best positioned to ensure content and behaviours are in accordance with a comprehensive Terms of Service (TOS) contract that all users must agree to before they can use Therapoid
The power belongs to the “crowd”
Members who demonstrate leadership can be voted by the community for Senior Scientific Community Manager roles
The roles carry their own set of awards and reputation promotion
These leaders have the adjudicating authority to ensure members and Community Managers are acting in accordance with the TOS
There is an independent scientific Advisory Board that can review all material disputes between members and Community Managers
This board is led by the Therapoid Chief Science Officer
Joining Therapoid
Do individuals need to have a science background to join Therapoid?
Not at all - one just needs to care about science
Students, scientists, researchers, citizen scientists, press, etc. are all welcome to join and participate so long as they adhere to the Terms of Service (TOS)
Benefits of Joining
1. Be Open. Be Seen. When a member is openly collaborating and communicating, s/he can be seen for opportunities by employment, gig, and academic recruiters
2. Communicating in the Forums can lead to the awarding of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) that are so critical for career advancement
3. Gain co-authors. Openly collaborating provides access to others who could be looking for co-authors
4. Gain macro-grants. When the blockchain-based grant awarding system is rolled-out, members will have a single-stop for applying for grants
5. Gain micro-grants. Small grants hosted by Therapoid, its members, investors, and philanthropists are available to members
6. Free equipment. Therapoid hosts surplus lab equipment that is made freely available to members
7. ScienceCoins (SCI). The award of utility tokens for openly collaborating is an exceptionally powerful incentive for those who are economically stressed. For those who are not, they can donate their SCI to charities and socially conscious efforts
8. Free IP. Working openly on IP gives members an opportunity to be seen by the “inventors” and their institutions. This visibility can lead to opportunities such as employment, grant awards, and co-authorships
Features for members
Grants
Currently, micro-grants can only be seen by members who opt-in to see them in their Profiles
Micro-grants are offered by Therapoid, its partners, philanthropies, and other members
These are grants of up to $10,000 USD or equivalent ScienceCoins (SCI)
The community votes upon the proposals submitted through the Therapoid grant section to determine which proposals are awarded in SCI or fiat currency
Macro-grants exceeding the $10,000 USD (or equivalent SCI) will also be available in the grant sections
Eventually, all grants will be managed on the Polygon blockchain from the Request for Proposals (RFPs) to the resulting publications or deliverables
Who are the sponsors of the grants?
Anyone or any organization can offer a grant
Doing so is done through an easy-to-use interface in the opt-in grant section of the Profile
IP Rights
How are IP rights managed?
All IP moves in and out of Therapoid in a significantly advanced Terms of Service (TOS) based upon a Creative Commons 4.0 ShareAlike licensing model
Everything is freely provided, and nothing can be locked down
If anyone does not want his/her IP to be open, then it should not be put out in Therapoid
Once created in Therapoid, it is open
The blockchain implementation will enable the tracking of IP provenance
Regarding IP disputes
“Disputes” will be adjudicated by the community, if necessary, the Science Advisory Board, which is all governed by the TOS
Through the nature of being a member, the user gives up all claims to IP used or provided under the advanced Creative Commons 4.0 ShareAlike licence
Tokenomics
What are ScienceCoins?
ScienceCoins (SCI) are ERC-20 utility token
They are gained by the community for conducting open science activities, like a “scientific-proof-of-work” model
As the membership grows, pre-positioned vendors (insurance, banking, consumable suppliers, lab equipment vendors, etc.) will begin accepting SCI to gain access to those holding SCI to become customers
Members are encouraged to freely exchange SCI between themselves for conducting activities such as translating papers, creating graphics, charts, grant writing, etc
Voting rights are not currently tied to SCI
Might consider implementing it with guidance from the community
What is the total supply and distribution breakdown of ScienceCoins?
Total supply of 500,000,000 tokens
Operations/gratuity - 42,500,000 tokens (8.5%)
Therapoid users - 400,000,000 tokens (80.0%)
Burn - 57,500,000 tokens (11.5%)
How can a member earn ScienceCoins besides buying them off the exchange?
This table is updated constantly at: https://therapoid.net/en/sciencecoin/
NFTs
What are Therapoid NFTs? What can they be used for?
To provide a digital Scientists of Interest paired with a physical metal medallion to the first five (hundred) registrants to Therapoid on a first-come-first-served basis
“Scientists of Interest” Pairs
Five hundred (500) unique and serial numbered digital animations are paired with five hundred (500) matching serial numbered physical metal medallions
The metal medallions are 70mm in diameter with a certificate and velvet box
Each digital and metal collectible is minted with “ScienceCoins” and “The Currency of Knowledge”
Serial numbers 1 through 99 are given to community members, investors, strategic partners, and advisors
Serial numbers 100 through 500 are given to first-come, first-serve registrants
All receivers of the serial numbered NFT pairs must be registered with Therapoid and provide their physical, email, and wallet addresses. They must also sign-up for newsletters and accept text messages.
How can a member earn these NFTs?
With the first NFT launch, a user needs to register and gain access to the random draw
Will expand it to incorporate community created content if this model works well
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