Lab Livre | UnB

What Lab Livre | UnB does

LAPPIS (Laboratório Aplicado de Produção Pesquisa e Inovação em Software) is a Brazilian Free and Open-Source Software research laboratory operating within the University of Brasília (UnB) at the Faculty of Gama. The lab is women-led and focuses on developing open-source software for public-sector digital transformation, citizen participation, healthcare screening, and cultural project evaluation, while cultivating talent from underrepresented groups in technology. Its core products include Brasil Participativo — the largest civic participation platform of the Brazilian federal government, built on the Decidim framework and scaled to over 1.5 million users in three months — alongside DermaCam (a Data Fabric and machine-learning system for early skin cancer screening in primary care), SalicML (a recommendation engine trained on approximately 30,000 historical cultural projects), Virtual Assistant Tais (a Portuguese-language Rasa-based chatbot), Empurrando Juntas (an AI-driven opinion-segmentation platform), the UnB Energy Management System (an IoT-based distributed monitoring solution), and the IPEA Data Management Ecosystem. Technology stack centers on Ruby on Rails (Decidim), Python, DevOps/continuous delivery, machine learning, IoT, and distributed systems, with active contributions back to upstream open-source communities (Decidim, Rocket.chat, Rasa).

The lab does not operate commercially. Revenue mechanics are grant-funded through Brazilian federal and district-level agencies (FAP-DF, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services), supplemented by collaborative research agreements with institutional partners such as Dataprev, IPEA, Instituto Eldorado/Dell, and the OECD Gov2Gov Innovation Incubator. Its go-to-market is community-led and event-driven rather than sales-led, channeled through open-source ecosystems, Google Summer of Code mentorship, academic publications (including a DevOps survey with 450+ citations), and direct ministerial deployments. Customer segments are concentrated in the Brazilian federal public administration, with secondary segments in higher education and healthcare.

Name

Lab Livre | UnB

Legal name

Laboratório de Livre Software (Lab Livre)

Website

https://lappis.rocks

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

LAPPIS is a women-led open-source research lab at the University of Brasília that develops free software for the Brazilian federal government, including the Brasil Participativo civic platform, AI-enabled healthcare and cultural analytics tools, and mentoring programs for underrepresented technologists.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Open-Source Civic Technology Research

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415), Other Computer Related Services (541519), Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (541)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYHLACANAG

SaMD – Imaging & Signal Analysis (AI/ML)

Healthcare & Life Sciences/Digital Health & Health IT/Digital Therapeutics (DTx) & Software as a Medical Device (SaMD)

SECONDARYHLACANAF

SaMD – Digital Biomarkers & Algorithmic Endpoints

Healthcare & Life Sciences/Digital Health & Health IT/Digital Therapeutics (DTx) & Software as a Medical Device (SaMD)

Keywords

• Open-source software
• Civic participation platform
• Government digital transformation
• Machine learning research
• Academic research lab

Headquarters

HQ city

Brasília

HQ country

Brazil

HQ region

Latin America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Others

Revenue model

1. Research Grants and Government Funding: LAPPIS operates as a university research laboratory funded through research grants from government agencies including FAP-DF, Ministry of Culture, and Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services
2. Academic Partnerships: Collaborative research with government institutions and private sector for developing open-source solutions

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

LAPPIS develops open-source software solutions for Brazilian public-sector digital transformation, civic participation, healthcare screening, and cultural project evaluation. Its products include the Brasil Participativo civic platform (1.5M+ users), the BOSS mentorship program, DermaCam (ML skin cancer screening), SalicML cultural-project recommendation engine, Virtual Assistant Tais chatbot, and an Energy Management IoT system — all delivered free as open-source code.

Product overview

LAPPIS (Laboratório Aplicado de Produção Pesquisa e Inovação em Software) is a Brazilian Free and Open-Source Software research laboratory at the University of Brasília (UnB) that develops multiple open-source products and projects. The portfolio includes Brasil Participativo (a large-scale civic participation platform built on Decidim), BOSS (an open-source mentoring program), and various AI/ML-enabled projects including DermaCam (healthcare screening), SalicML (cultural project evaluation), Virtual Assistant Tais (government services chatbot), Empurrando Juntas (opinion analysis), Energy Management, and IPEA Data Management. These products are developed through collaboration with government agencies and the private sector, and many utilize machine learning, data engineering, and natural language processing capabilities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• BOSS (Big Open Source Sibling): Awarded mentoring program supporting underrepresented groups in tech to learn how to contribute to open-source projects, awarded first place in Gnome Community Challenge.
• Brasil Participativo
• Empurrando Juntas (EJ)

Products and services

• Brasil Participativo An open-source civic participation platform built on the Decidim framework, customized for the Brazilian federal government context. Enables citizens to contribute to the creation and improvement of public policies. Deployed for the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services (MGI) with support from Dataprev and the Decidim-Brasil community, serving 1.5M+ users and collecting 1.4M+ proposals during the 2023 PPA.
• BOSS (Big Open Source Sibling)

Quantifiable outcome

• 1.5 million users onboarded to Brasil Participativo in 3 months
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

AI capability12 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core, supporting and flagship.

• DataprevcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerGovernment technology company providing technical support for Brazil Participativo platform development and deployment
• Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services (MGI)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFederal ministry supporting the Brazil Participativo platform for citizen participation in public policy creation
• Decidim-Brasil CommunitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCommunity of 200+ participants customizing Decidim participatory democracy framework for Brazilian context
• Ministry of Culture (MinC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership since October 2017 (24 months) for Free Software Ecosystems project bringing innovation to Ministry's open-source systems and conducting research in DevOps and ML
• Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on IPEA Data Management Ecosystem project improving management and integration of structural government data systems
• Foundation for the Support of Research of the Federal District (FAP-DF)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch foundation funding DermaCam project for skin cancer early screening using Data Fabric and Machine Learning
• Instituto Eldorado / DellsupportingStrategic or Co-development PartnerMachine learning research collaboration for outlier detection in customer databases using Data, Feature Engineering, and MLOps techniques
• OECD Gov2Gov Innovation IncubatorflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerBrasil Participativo team selected for 'Voices Unheard: Inclusive Design Challenge' exploring broader digital participation in policy-making

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• vTaiwan / g0v: Taiwan's civic tech movement and consultation platform (vTaiwan). Direct peer because it operates a comparable citizen-government consultation platform built by a community of civic hackers with a similar methodology around collaborative policymaking.
• LiquidFeedback: Open-source liquid democracy platform originating from the German Pirate Party. Direct peer because it operates a comparable open-source citizen participation platform deployed by political parties and civic organizations globally.
• Citizenlab: Belgian civic engagement SaaS serving municipalities and governments. Direct peer because it offers a comparable citizen participation product targeting the same government-customer segment, though as a commercial SaaS rather than academic project.
• Decidim: The Barcelona-origin open-source participatory democracy framework that LAPPIS extends with Brasil Participativo. Direct peer because LAPPIS is both a contributor to and the largest national-scale deployer of Decidim, customizing the framework for Brazilian federal government use.
• Consul Democracy: Madrid's open-source civic participation platform used by hundreds of municipalities worldwide. Direct peer because it operates the same product category (citizen participation platforms) for government customers, built on a comparable open-source distribution model.

Regional players

• Open Knowledge Brasil: Brazilian open data and open government organization. Regional peer because it operates in the same Brazilian civic tech ecosystem with a complementary open government data mission, though focused on advocacy rather than platform deployment.

Broad incumbents

• Mozilla Foundation: Global open-source software foundation (Firefox, etc.). Broad incumbent because it represents the broader FOSS movement within which LAPPIS operates, with a comparable mission around open standards, internet health, and inclusion in tech.
• Code for America: US-based nonprofit civic technology organization that builds digital services for government. Broad incumbent because it operates in the same civic tech category but at a much larger scale and broader scope across US federal, state, and local government.
• Free Software Foundation: US-based nonprofit advocating for free software (GNU/Linux movement). Broad incumbent because it is the foundational FOSS advocacy organization; LAPPIS operates under the FSF's free software philosophy, and Gnome (where LAPPIS won its award) is an FSF-adjacent project.
• Open Data Institute: UK-based nonprofit focused on building an open data culture and ecosystem. Broad incumbent because it works in the same adjacent open government data space with comparable mission around data-driven public services and policy.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgitlab.com/lappis-unb
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/lappis-rocks

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Lab Livre | UnB