NASA Lifelines Team Returns from Colombia, RFI Pitch Showcase and Mural Unveiling

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July 9, 2026

The NASA Lifelines team traveled to Bogotá to host the Ready for Impact Pitch Showcase, where eleven teams presented satellite-data solutions for early warning and disaster response. The trip also marked the unveiling of the second Crisis Readiness Accelerator mural.

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The NASA Lifelines team recently returned from Bogotá, where two milestones came together in the same week. The second of three Crisis Readiness Accelerator murals was unveiled in the heart of the city, and eleven organizations took the stage in the Ready for Impact Pitch Showcase to pitch the solutions they had spent months building. Both moments captured the same idea in different forms, one through public art, the other through applied science, that satellite data only matters when it reaches the people and communities who need it most.

The NASA Lifelines team joins colleagues from Mercy Corps, 3iS, the mural’s host building, and artist Mr. Garek during a tour of murals near Simón Bolívar Square, the main square in Bogotá.

The Ready for Impact Pitch Showcase brought together eleven teams selected through a competitive process as part of the Crisis Readiness Accelerator, run in partnership with Twilio.org to advance their solutions: Cáritas Colombiana, Cruz Roja Colombiana, Datasketch, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, the International Organization for Migration, the World Food Programme, Procalculo Prosis, Red LaBOT, Satellites on Fire, Tethys Geoscience Foundation, and 3iS each spent three months developing tools that connect satellite data and communications technology to real early warning and crisis response needs. Panelists Sylvia Etcheverry of OCHA, Jorge Armando Alpala Aguilar of UNGRD, María Paula Gómez of Mercy Corps Ventures, and Anderson Mosquera of Twilio.org heard each pitch and offered feedback grounded in years of field experience. Six teams received funding to advance their solutions. Cruz Roja Colombiana, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, Red LaBOT, Tethys Geoscience Foundation, and 3iS each received $50,000, while Datasketch received $30,000.

All eleven Ready for Impact teams gather in front of the stage where they presented their pitches.

Just before the showcase, the team marked the completion of the second mural in a three-part series, made possible by Twilio.org in collaboration with Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi and 3iS. Artist Jean Betancourt, known professionally as Mr. Garek, used the large-scale piece to reflect on the relationship between people, technology, and resilience in the face of growing environmental and humanitarian challenges. Betancourt’s work is known for the recurring image of the migrant seed, a visual metaphor for how people who migrate transform and enrich the places they settle. With over a decade of experience painting murals across Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, France, and the Dutch Caribbean, Betancourt brought that same throughline of movement and resilience to the streets of Bogotá.

A close-up of the mural just off Simón Bolívar Square, depicting three generations of Indigenous people affected by disasters.

Congratulations to all the participants in the Crisis Readiness Accelerator, from the muralists across San Andrés, Cali, and Bogotá, to the Ready for Impact finalists. Their work is a reminder of just how far satellite data can reach, from the early warning systems being built today to the stories that help communities see themselves in that work.