Turning raw biodiversity data into something a policymaker can actually use
National open-data infrastructure for people who aren't data scientists — a student, a rural producer, a policymaker.
SiB Colombia is the national node of GBIF; its mandate is open access to biodiversity data. That data is technically rich but useless to most people who need it. I led design across a network of interconnected portals built to close that gap, including the main data portal and a regional synthesis tool, Biodiversidad en Cifras.
Context
The challenge had three layers: efficient collection and publication pipelines, presenting the resulting data usably, and — where most of the work concentrated — turning that data into something a student, a rural producer, or a policymaker could act on without a data-science background. Whatever got built for one region had to scale to all 32 departments of Colombia.
What I did
I interviewed across very different user types to find the real gap: not access to raw data, but the absence of synthesized answers to immediate questions. I ran a 'deconstructed' design sprint with multiple community and state actors at once to reconcile regional needs into one scalable product, shipped Santander first, then Boyacá with usability updates applied back to Santander — a real feedback loop. I also built the institution's design system and worked hands-on in the React front-end alongside engineering.
A note on the evidence
Institutional numbers (100+ organizations, 7M→13M records) are period estimates kept clearly separate from the 20/day→5/week query reduction, which is specific to Biodiversidad en Cifras — so one product doesn't claim credit for an entire institution's growth.
Visuals
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