Medata is Medellín’s open data platform, enabling transparency, informed decision-making, and innovation by making public information accessible, reusable, and valuable for government, citizens, and businesses.

Why Open Data Matters for Cities

Imagine a city where government data on public health, traffic patterns, environmental quality, and education sits locked away in files, inaccessible to anyone outside the institution that collected it. Researchers can’t study long-term trends. Businesses can’t identify opportunities. Citizens can’t verify how their taxes are spent. Universities lose the ability to train students with real-world datasets, and public policies are built on assumptions rather than evidence. Without open data, both innovation and accountability are stifled, and opportunities for collective problem-solving are lost.

Over the past two decades, the global community has recognized this gap and began to act. Governments in the United States and the United Kingdom pioneered open data portals while initiatives led by organizations like the World Bank and the OECD helped establish global standards and encourage adoption.

Colombia moved in this direction. The Law 1712 of 2014 on Transparency and Access to Public Information and the Law 1581 of 2012 on personal data protection, created the legal foundation that not only allows but mandates public entities to publish information proactively. These laws opened the door for the open national platform datos.gov.co and encouraged cities to create their own local ecosystems for data openness and reuse.

Medellín’s answer to this challenge was Medata: a unified, accessible open data platform designed to bring together information from across the District’s government, organize it under shared standards, and make it available to everyone, from policymakers and researchers to entrepreneurs and everyday citizens. 

The Medata Platform and the City’s Journey Toward a Stronger Data Culture

As explained earlier, Medellín’s commitment to creating Medata was shaped by a broader national context. At the time, Colombia’s national government, through the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC), was actively promoting open data initiatives across the country. The Departamento Administrativo de Planeación (DAP) — Medellín’s Administrative Department of Planning — was responsible for leading this initiative in line with the city’s Public Knowledge Management Policy.

To advance this effort, the DAP invited MinTIC to train its public servants in the skills and standards needed to manage, structure, and publish open datasets. Public servants received training in Python for data analysis and automation, and Tableau for data visualization, equipping them to transform raw information into accessible, actionable insights for the public.

Once the decision to design the platform was made, the DAP partnered with Ruta N, Medellín’s innovation and business development centre. Ruta N specializes in fostering technology-based solutions and connecting projects with the right talent and resources. Leveraging its strong ties to the local technology ecosystem, Ruta N identified a qualified local provider to design and implement the platform. Together, they built Medata on Drupal, a widely used, free, open-source content management system (CMS) known for its flexibility, security, and adaptability. Within Drupal, they implemented DKAN, a specialized open data management tool that adds essential functions such as dataset catalogues, metadata management, public APIs, and integration with interactive dashboards, making it easier for both technical and non-technical users to find, explore, and reuse information. To store the city’s information before publication, the platform also incorporates a data lake, a digital repository capable of holding large volumes of raw data from multiple departments in its original format. 

Since its launch, both the city and the platform have evolved. Medellín’s designation as the District of Science, Technology, and Innovation led to the creation of the Digital Innovation Secretariat, which is now responsible for Medata and all data-related initiatives. Under their leadership, the platform has been upgraded to DKANv2, improving speed, usability, and integration with data visualization tools.

The Secretariat has set an ambitious goal: to reach 1,056 datasets for public utilization. Within the Municipality’s data architecture, MEDATA serves as the open data portal. For the District’s data lake, the underlying technology is Hadoop, which supports the secure and flexible storage of large volumes of information. Out of the 1,056 datasets, only those containing non-classified information—after thorough anonymization—will be published on MEDATA for open access. The objective of reaching 1,056 is focused on maximizing the value and use of data across departments, rather than simply increasing the number of open datasets.

A key element in promoting this culture of data is Medata’s Stories (Historias) section, which features real-life examples of how people have used the platform to solve problems, conduct research, or create new projects. By showing concrete benefits, such as improved academic work, business insights, or community initiatives, these stories inspire others to explore the platform, discover the value of open data, and become active participants in Medellín’s information ecosystem.

MEDATA’s Real-Life Impact

The platform's reach can be measured through its monitoring tools: MEDATA has registered 13,000 visits so far in 2025, with nearly 900 dataset downloads. The availability of open data has also led to a reduction in PQRS (petitions, complaints, claims, and suggestions) since people now have direct access to the information they need, reinforcing MEDATA’s role as an accessible and transparent source for the city’s residents

Moreover, Medata’s impact is best seen through the people who use it. The Stories section highlights researchers, students, and professionals who have turned its datasets into real-world solutions, making open data a living tool for Medellín’s development.

One of these is Professor Juan Pablo Vélez, a consultant and lecturer in business intelligence and big data. For him, Medata is “a powerful tool” that provides organized, reliable datasets for building predictive models, identifying urban trends, and guiding decision-making for organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. In his postgraduate and doctoral courses on artificial intelligence and machine learning, students use Medata to work on projects ranging from traffic safety analysis to forecasting adolescent pregnancy rates. These exercises not only train future data scientists but also produce insights that can be applied to public policy and urban planning.

Another example is Andrés Felipe Jaramillo Tamayo, a chemical engineer turned data analytics specialist and master’s student in analytical engineering at the Universidad Nacional. His first encounters with Medata came during his undergraduate studies, when he used it to justify and design academic projects. More recently, in a course on disruptive technologies, he built a case study using Medata’s structured CSV datasets, first focusing on health and safety, then on mobility. By combining these datasets, he was able to conduct risk analyses for traffic incidents, including correlations with neighbourhood security data.

As a teaching assistant, Jaramillo now introduces his students to Medata, encouraging them to base their projects on real, local problems supported by official data. He describes the platform as a major time-saver, eliminating the need to search across multiple sites or preprocess scattered datasets. “Because it comes directly from the Mayor’s Office of Medellín, it’s already structured and reliable, you skip at least two steps, and can focus on producing higher-quality outputs,” he explains.

For both Vélez and Jaramillo, the value of Medata lies not just in access to information, but in its usability: the data is structured, exportable in open formats, and trustworthy, empowering people to move from questions to actionable insights.