Meet Neliti, Winner of the Startups of the Year in Singapore

This interview series celebrates the remarkable achievements of the Hackernoon Startups of the Year winners.

Meet Neliti, a content management system (CMS) for academic journals that put up impressive numbers in 2023. We sat down with Neliti CEO Anton Lucanus, whose transition from research scientist to tech entrepreneur has enabled millions across Southeast Asia to access the region's rich trove of academic content.

What does it mean for you to win this title?

Amidst the buzz around Web 3.0 and AI, it's nice to see our Web 2.0 SaaS product among the winners. We’re not fancy, but we address a very real problem: making academic research more easily accessible in developing countries.

It’s affirming to know that this problem and our solution to it are receiving recognition. The entire team at Neliti is deeply committed to this mission, and the Hackernoon Startups of the Year title provides us with a healthy dose of rocket fuel!

Tell us how your startup is changing the world.

Academic publishing is the editing and publication of academic journals, which are publications containing all the scientific papers in a certain field. It is the main method for communicating the results of recent research. Humanity relies on this method of communication to solve the world’s biggest scientific challenges, such as human disease, climate change, and poverty.

A significant obstacle within the academic publishing system is the limited access to vital scientific papers for researchers in developing countries, hindering their ability to contribute solutions to the world’s most critical scientific challenges.

Neliti bridges this gap by enabling academic content providers, such as academic publishers, to make their research openly and readily available. The impact of our solution is evident in the millions of emerging researchers who rely on Neliti monthly to access the essential data they need for their work.

What sets you apart from the competition?

Our holistic understanding of the unique challenges and needs within the academic publishing sector, particularly in the developing world. Academic articles, the vessels of important scientific discoveries, are disseminated via three primary channels: academic journals, academic conferences, and institutional repositories. The latter serve as open-access digital libraries hosting a diverse range of academic content, from scholarly articles and books to scientific datasets.

There are two main types of existing solutions in our industry: free open source solutions (such as OJS for journals or ePrints for repositories) and paid solutions (such as Silverchair for journals or Pure for repositories). The challenge with the free open source options is their complexity and lack of user-friendliness, requiring substantial technical know-how to deploy and maintain. This poses a significant barrier for their primary users—academics and librarians—who are experts in their fields but not in web development, often leading to subpar and bug-prone websites. On the flip side, the premium solutions, while robust, are prohibitively expensive for all except the most affluent institutions in developed nations.

Neliti aims to disrupt this space by offering a solution that is as user-friendly as it is powerful, all while being free of charge. Our vision is to enable even the smallest universities in developing countries to create academic journals and institutional repositories that surpass the aesthetics and functionality of those developed by wealthy institutions with extensive budgets. This ambition is at the heart of our UI/UX team's efforts.

Beyond aesthetics, we are committed to alleviating the technical burdens our users face. By managing the entire tech stack, including web hosting and content indexing, we allow our users to concentrate on what they’re good at: publishing impactful research.

What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem?

I hold immense admiration for every member of our team. One thing I love is our celebration of each individual's uniqueness—their personalities, skills, and respective contributions to our overarching mission. Another thing, and probably what I treasure most, is the depth of our relationships. I see each team member as a friend first, which naturally enriches our work.

As a remote team, our annual in-person meetups are particularly special. These occasions allow us to share our passion for the Neliti mission, creating a buzz of shared purpose and enthusiasm. This, coupled with our unique team dynamics, positions us ideally to address the complexities of open access in the academic world, especially within developing regions.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

Neliti’s success is quantitatively gauged by a set of core metrics that reflect our widespread adoption and impact: number of institutions publishing content using our platform (currently 1,200+), number of articles published (400,000+) number of researchers accessing that content each month (2 million+).

What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2024?

Currently, Neliti is mostly popular in Indonesia. But over the last few years, we’ve seen sporadic usership from dozens of other developing countries. In 2024, we hope to go deep into at least one of those markets. We’ll keep it a surprise as to which one 😉

If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing?

Writing a book about the history of the academic publishing system, how it evolved to where it is today, and how we can improve the industry.

The book would shed light on how the industry can be reformed and improved for the betterment of scientific discovery and human advancement more generally.

I find the academic publishing industry fascinating. In 1655, the academic journal emerged. At the time, it was a revolutionary development in scientific communication. It provided a transparent and open exchange of evidence-based findings, while also indicating clear provenance of scientific discoveries.

The current system hasn’t change too much since 1655, relatively speaking. In the current status quo, a team of researchers spends months (even years) getting funding and performing rigorous research, all of which culminates in a paper that is submitted to an academic publisher. The paper is then evaluated by peer reviewers, who are other researchers in the field. This is the main quality-assurance mechanism in scientific research. If accepted by the publisher, the paper is published. Libraries then pay up to millions of dollars annually for journal subscriptions to the publisher to access the research.

Academic publishing is an odd system — the authors are not paid for their writing, nor are the peer reviewers (they’re just more unpaid academics), and in some fields even the journal editors are unpaid. The authors sign away their intellectual property rights to publishers for free, and sometimes they must even pay the publishers. And yet scientific publications are some of the most expensive pieces of literature you can buy. It is such an odd system that those who fund and perform research must actually pay to read the research they create, while taxpayers must pay to access publicly funded research.

This scenario underscores why many within the academic community view the system as “broken”. Yet, there's a general lack of understanding regarding how the industry reached its current state and, more importantly, what measures can be taken to rectify it. My book would delve into these issues, offering a comprehensive exploration of the academic publishing landscape and proposing pathways for its improvement.

Which trend(s) are you most excited about in 2024? Share your reasons.

OK, let’s take a break from academic publishing for a minute! I’m most excited about scientific advancement in the ageing and longevity space. There have been major breakthroughs in understanding human ageing over the last decade, and 2024 is a big year for the field. I’m excited for this, because there is a growing consensus among scientists that ageing is a “disease” that can be solved.

2023 had been another crazy year, especially in tech, with layoffs and the Generative AI takeover! Which trend are you most concerned about? Be as brief or as detailed as you like.

AI. We didn’t know smoking was dangerous until it was. We didn’t know asbestos was dangerous until it was. We didn’t know nuclear power was dangerous until it was. AI is like that, on steroids, and irreversible. Political intervention needed. Even more so than the great Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

We can learn from history, but the economic and national security benefits of AI currently pose too much of a benefit to any country considering its regulation. This is at the core of its threat.

History has repeatedly shown us that the allure of such benefits can make it difficult to regulate powerful technologies like AI. Such a tension between benefits and risks is not new. Unfortunately, it often takes a disaster to catalyze the implementation of necessary regulations. I hope we can learn from our past to proactively manage the risks of AI, rather than waiting for adverse outcomes to force our hand.

We would love your feedback on HackerNoon as a tech publication! How has your experience been with us?

Hackernoon is awesome. It’s a jungle of varied perspectives on all tech trends, which makes for some very unfiltered reading. I find it important to read opinions I disagree with, because the truth often lies somewhere in the middle.

Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us?

Every groundbreaking discovery was discovered by a human like yourself. Every groundbreaking innovation was ideated by a human like yourself. The human brain is phenomenal, what will you do with yours?