Projects
We want to achieve greater equity and transparency in access to government services and benefits — using better information to improve satisfaction and opportunities for everyone, especially the most vulnerable.
Active
Decidiendo para un Futuro Mejor (DFM) — Chile
National-scale digital curriculum to reduce school dropout and increase higher education access. Personalized 5-week in-school program with virtual counselor.
View project → activeDecidiendo para un Futuro Mejor (DFM) — Colombia
Regional deployment of DFM targeting grades 6–11, reaching 64,000 students. 70% rural participants.
View project → activeMelocreo — Medellín
Education technology project in Medellín, Colombia.
View project → activeIcfesBot — Higher Education Guidance
AI chatbot helping Colombian students navigate higher education options from their own ICFES exam results, delivered over WhatsApp. Built and hosted by ConsiliumBots and distributed through ICFES, it followed the 2017 Nudge to Search experiments, whose null results pointed toward personalized guidance anchored in each student's own scores.
View project → activeDOMUS — Subsidy Choice Platform
Modular ecosystem helping families navigate complex housing subsidy systems. Partnership with TOCTOC and Chile's Ministry of Housing.
View project → activeMIME — School and Career Explorer (Chile)
MIME lets Chilean families search and compare the schools available to them — location, results, cost and admission chances — in one place, alongside a companion explorer for higher-education careers. Built with Chile's Ministry of Education on the shared explorer platform, with data pipelines that keep school information current from one admission cycle to the next.
View project → activeegresa.do — Higher Education Explorer (Dominican Republic)
A public explorer that helps students in the Dominican Republic compare higher-education programs and understand what each pathway offers before they apply.
View project → activeMi Abogado AI
A scoping study exploring how AI-assisted tools can help lawyers and interdisciplinary teams in Chile's child-protection legal programs spend less time on administrative work and more on directly supporting children. Working with Programa Mi Abogado and NAD, it maps real workflows, identifies tasks suited to AI assistance, and produces design concepts, an MVP specification, and an evaluation-ready roadmap. It builds on causal evidence that stronger legal representation reduces children's time in institutional care, and is designed to augment professional judgment, not replace it.
View project → activePruebas Nacionales — "Tienes Talento" (Dominican Republic)
A ten-minute, mobile-first digital experience delivered to Dominican students right after they sit the Pruebas Nacionales, the national high-school exit exam. Students predict and then see how they performed relative to their peers, and those who score well receive an identity-affirming message — "Tienes Talento" — along with a four-step guide to applying for MESCyT scholarships and a personalized AI coach. The study tests whether that affirmation increases applications to selective higher-education programs and scholarships, using a combined randomized trial and regression-discontinuity design.
View project → activeCienPiés
CienPiés ("centipede") is a mobile-first platform that helps families and schools organize safe, supervised "walking school buses" — groups of children who walk to school together under rotating parent-volunteer supervision. Families who live near each other are clustered into optimized walking routes; guardians choose when they walk, lead, or back up, follow the live route, and can raise an alert if needed, while school administrators plan routes and track participation. It is bilingual and built for use across multiple schools.
View project → activeSiblings — Guidance for Families Applying with More Than One Child
Families applying to schools with more than one child face a strategic problem that families with a single applicant do not. Sibling priority rules mean the chance of placing children together depends on how the applications are ordered and combined, so a list that looks sensible child-by-child can leave siblings split across schools. This project studies that strategic structure in centralized assignment and develops practical guidance families can use when applying for several children at once.
View project →Completed
ICFES Nudge to Search — Colombia
Pop-up messages on the ICFES Saber 11 results platform linked students to a purpose-built information portal, built with Banco de la República, centralizing earnings by degree level for the nation and each department, employment rates, costs, and financial-aid eligibility. Two nationwide randomized experiments tested which messages move information search. The precursor to IcfesBot — no chatbot was involved.
View project → completedCollege Application Mistakes — Chile
A multi-year collaboration with Chile's higher-education admissions system to stop students from losing places they had earned. Nationwide surveys found that 40% of students were not applying to the program they most wanted, and that one in ten of those students would have been better off had they applied. Working with the Ministry of Education, ConsiliumBots delivered personalized information during the application window — what each program involves, a student's real chances of admission, and alternative majors worth considering — first as a large-scale field experiment and then as national policy.
View project → completedHigher Education Chatbot — Chile
A conversational assistant built with Chile's Ministry of Education that answered students' questions about higher education — what they could study, where, and what it would cost — at the point they were deciding whether and where to apply. A machine-learning recommender behind the chatbot tailored suggested programs to each student.
View project → completedAdmission Risk API — Pernambuco, Brazil
An implementation of ConsiliumBots' admission-risk API for Pernambuco's centralized school assignment, estimating how likely a family is to be admitted to each school they are considering so they can apply with a realistic picture of their chances.
View project → completedOSObot — Vocational Guidance, Bogotá
A vocational guidance chatbot for students in their final two years of secondary education in Bogotá, helping them think through what to study and what comes after school.
View project → completedSchool Explorer — Colombia
A school explorer for Colombian families, deployed with local governments including Palmira in Valle del Cauca, letting families see and compare the schools available to them before applying.
View project → completedFeedback Reports for Students and Families
Personalized reports — cartillas — delivered to families at the moment they are making a decision, summarizing what their options are and what each one would mean for them. Deployments covered early-childhood admissions in Chile and school-choice pilots in Tacna, Peru and Espírito Santo, Brazil. The higher-education version of this work in Chile is covered by the College Application Mistakes project.
View project → completedTeacher Assignment Feedback Reports — Ecuador
Personalized feedback for teachers applying through Ecuador's centralized teacher selection competitions, Quiero Ser Maestro-IB and Quiero Ser Maestro-7. Reports were sent by SMS and WhatsApp carrying a non-assignment risk alert and recommending posts where the teacher stood a better chance, timed so they could still change their application. Developed and implemented with the Inter-American Development Bank.
View project → completedAVE — Aprendiendo el Valor de la Educación
Large-scale RCT using telenovela-style videos to inform students about value of education. This work predates ConsiliumBots and was not run by the organization — it is earlier research by our founding team that directly inspired the approach ConsiliumBots was created to scale.
View project → completedPeru Information Campaign on Returns to Education
Paper-based and tablet-based information campaign on returns to education for primary school students.
View project → completedNew Haven Public Schools — School Assignment
Centralized student-to-school assignment system with school information platform for New Haven families.
View project → completedSistema de Admisión Escolar (SAE) — Chile
Chile's national school assignment system processing 2 million applications annually. Originally developed at ConsiliumBots, spun off to TetherEducation.
View project → completedSAE — Algorithm Management and School Choice Feedback (Chile)
A three-year contract with Chile's Ministry of Education, won through public procurement, supporting the Sistema de Admisión Escolar (SAE), the national system that assigns students to schools. ConsiliumBots maintained the deferred-acceptance assignment algorithm, built a risk API that estimates a family's chances of admission to the schools they are considering, produced congestion reports on where demand outstrips available seats, and delivered personalized feedback to families during the application process. The risk API was handed over to MINEDUC in 2024 for the ministry to run itself.
View project → completedAcceso Libre — Peru
Working with Peru's Ministry of Education, ConsiliumBots designed the algorithm behind Acceso Libre, the country's centralized process for applying to and being assigned a place in higher education. The work brought a coordinated, rules-based assignment mechanism to a process that determines which students get access to which programs.
View project →Proposed
AI Education Agents — 100 Schools Pilot
AI-powered agents via WhatsApp helping families navigate enrollment and educational pathways. 200 schools across 2 cities.
View project → proposedTiempo para Liderar con IA (Time to Lead with AI)
A proposed randomized field experiment testing whether practical training and light coaching can help Chilean school principals adopt AI tools responsibly — reducing administrative burden and reclaiming time for instructional leadership. Motivated by evidence that Latin American school directors spend roughly three-quarters of their time on non-pedagogical work, it would randomize about 100 Santiago-area schools (prioritizing public and lower-income communities) and measure adoption, safe use, how recovered time is reallocated, and spillovers to teachers.
View project →Research initiatives
Women in STEM
Research on gender gaps in STEM education and interventions to increase women's participation.
View project → researchDaycare Deserts
Research on geographic access to early childhood education.
View project → researchCoordinated Choice & Assignment Systems (CCAS) — Global Review
A global review of how 149 countries use Coordinated Choice & Assignment Systems (CCAS) — the platforms and algorithms that match students to schools and universities when prices don't allocate access. It documents that about 60% of countries now use some coordinated mechanism (nearly double the last decade), maps the wide variation in how these systems are designed, and identifies evidence-based ways to make admissions more equitable and efficient. Findings are shared through an open, living data platform.
View project →