# Como Votam

> A nonprofit civic-tech project that makes Brazil's public legislative data easy to visualize and analyze. I built the data pipeline and scaled the database 10x without significant added cost.

- Organisation: Como Votam
- Role: Co-Founder
- Duration: Aug 2025 - Present
- Tools & Technologies: Data pipelines, Hybrid cloud, Relational databases, Public APIs
- URL: https://adrianoleao.com/case-study/como-votam
- Author: Adriano Leão (https://adrianoleao.com/)

## Context

Brazil's Senate and Chamber of Deputies already publish their data, but using it requires technical knowledge. Como Votam was created to democratize that public data: a civic, nonprofit project that makes legislative data easy to visualize and analyze for anyone.

    - **10x**: More relational database capacity, without significant added cost

    - **2 APIs**: Senate and Chamber of Deputies, collected automatically

## My role

Co-founder. I led both engineering and marketing, combining technical and management roles. I also defined the product roadmap, prioritized features and drove the launch strategy.

## What I built

- An automated data-collection pipeline over the public APIs of the Brazilian Senate and Chamber of Deputies, running on an extremely limited nonprofit budget
- A hybrid cloud architecture that removed a critical storage bottleneck
- The project's institutional positioning: strictly technical and nonpartisan

![Como Votam, votes page with approval rates by decision type](https://adrianoleao.com/images/projects/como-votam-2.webp)

## Outcome

- 10x more relational database capacity through a hybrid cloud migration, without significant added cost
- An automated pipeline that keeps public legislative data flowing
- A platform that stays clear of any association with political campaigning, a real challenge ahead of Brazil's 2026 national elections

[Back to the profile](https://adrianoleao.com/index.md)