Professional Affiliation

 Co-founder, Transparency, Social control, and Open Data (TRACODA)

Expert Bio

Luis V. Villaherrera has an International Affairs major Cum Laude; he is the co-founder of TRACODA, Transparency, Social control, and Open Data. The first youth lead organization that promotes the rule of Law, transparency, governance, and the use of data to empower citizens in El Salvador, using a more friendly approach emphasizing horizontal methodologies. He received a grant from the Department of State to create GobData, the first web App launched in 2018 that used the Access to public information Law to request names, salaries, and types of contracts from the people working in the government. The app helped journalists to find cases of corruption and had more than 500,000 views in the pre-launch. He specialized in projects about democracy, governance, fake news, disinformation, and civic participation. The projects launched by Luis, and his organization reach more than 45,000 citizens in El Salvador



More recently, Luis was selected as a fellow from a DoS program in which he learned how different civil society organizations are building programs to enhance democracy in the US and also how to tackle fake news, disinformation, and misinformation. He was part of the roundtables for the IX Summit of the Americas and the team lead from TRACODA on three cohorts from the Summit for Democracy. He had studied at the DoD on Defense Governance and had international experience in studies of democracy and governance.