Decentralised Journalists

Links

• Live Website
• Github Repository

Inspiration

The inspiration behind Decentralized Journalists stems from the pressing need for unbiased and secure platforms where diverse perspectives on complex issues can be shared freely. Traditional media can struggle to provide a balanced narrative in regions of prolonged conflict, where both sides have vital stories and viewpoints.

Issues including censorship, profit-driven reporting, media consolidation, and fake news plague the journalism scene. Whether spread purposefully or unintentionally, fake news damages people's trust. As a result of media consolidation, independent news sources fall prey to more giant corporations, which diminishes the diversity of viewpoints. Furthermore, censorship threatens freedom of speech by limiting journalists' capacity to cover particular subjects in many nations.

What it Does

Decentralised Journalists is a platform where journalists can upload their work while protecting their identities and maintaining their contributions' authenticity. Utilizing Web 3.0 technology, we offer a safe space where information can be shared without worrying about censorship or reprisal while creating new revenue streams for journalists. 

Authenticity Guarenteed: Thanks to the blockchain's immutability, we ensures that every article is authentic to the journalist, and no tampering has been done.

Empowering independent Journalists: Journalists can receive donations/funding directly from the viewer using cryptocurrencies through the Near Blockchain.

How We Built It

Roadmap for this weekend: 

Initial research: Attend workshops and read up on guides and how-to-start manuals.

Task assignment: We delegated and distributed the tasks based on each person's experience and interest.

Designs, Mockups, and Roadmaps: Using Figma, Canva, and Mural, we created our rough designs to start working on the code of the application. At this stage, we also made roadmaps and assigned story points to each person, estimating the time each task would take.

Developing the product: Being set on our goal, we started learning and using the tools needed to bring our idea to reality. 

• Near Blockchain: Leveraging the Blockchain Operation System of Near, we deployed our first Web Application on Web 3.0.
• Neurelo: Utilizing provided automation, accompanied by AI assistant query generation, made setting up our backend (API/Database) a swift experience. 
  
  

Challenges We Ran Into

Working with bleeding-edge technology—specifically the Near Blockchain was not without hurdles. Since this is our first time working with Near Blockchain, we were looking at documentation/online resources throughout this hackathon. By the end, we were able to get everything working.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

Successfully building our Web application on Web 3.0 was a first for all of us. It took a lot of work to understand and even harder to work with concepts. However, after our Web application was running on Blockchain we were really proud of ourselves for not giving up and pushing through it.

Additionally, members are really proud of each other for being able to put their 110% into developing, collaborating, and helping each other out during the duration of the hackathon.

What We Learned

We learned both hard and soft skills:
The team really enjoyed picking up working with NEAR and Neurelo. NEAR makes development on Web 3.0 easy, and Neurelo is a fantastic tool for prototyping database schemas and their corresponding API endpoints. It allows for rapid development and hassle-free ideas.

We worked on an agile-based development, which was very hard to execute in a hackathon timeframe. This allowed us to pick new skills from each other, learn, and grow together as a team. Teamwork with unit testing, communication, and task delegation were the main skills we developed as a result of these 36 hours of intense challenge.

What's Next?

The future for Decentralized Journalists looks promising. We are really excited to keep working on Decentralized Journalists and empower journalists all around the world. Here are some of our future ideas:

• Social features will be introduced to foster dynamic interactions between journalists and readers, creating a more engaged and informed community. 
• Implement In House Payment Processing so readers can directly donate to journalists from the website
• Utilizing NFT metadata will provide verifiable authenticity and ownership of articles, establishing a new standard for credibility and intellectual property in journalism. These advancements further empower journalists to operate with greater independence and trustworthiness while enhancing reader engagement and support.

Lastly, we wanted to extend our gratitude towards the great team of HawkHacks who gave us this opportunity by organizing this massive hackathon. We look forward to your future events!