I rebuilt a 15-year-old civic project into a real app, and it just launched.

Back in 2011, I started a Facebook page called BuracosMT (“MT Potholes”), where I reported broken roads and urban problems in Mato Grosso, my state in central Brazil. It was simple: people sent me photos of the mess outside their houses, and I posted them. Around 90% of everything on that page came from followers.

It grew into one of the region’s best-known citizen channels. Local government would sometimes fix things because a post blew up. That still amazes me.

But it was just a feed. A complaint would go up, get attention for a day, and disappear.

So this year I rebuilt the whole thing as a platform. Website + Android app, now live on the Play Store.

Here’s what it does now. Anyone can report a problem, whether it’s a pothole, flooding, garbage, a broken streetlight or unsigned roadworks, with a photo and a pin on the map. It lands on a public feed and an interactive map of the city. The complaint is then routed to whichever public agency is responsible for that specific road, and that agency can update the status: under review, in progress, resolved. The entire history stays public.

That last part is the whole point. It’s not just shouting anymore. It’s a transparent record of what got reported, what got fixed, and what got ignored.

And I built all of it with help of AI.

15 years ago I had this same idea, I had it all documented and the prototype made on Photoshop with every layer properly named, categorized groups etc, it had to be like that when creating applications, websites, when every little thing is a layer, and the way photoshop interface works, it was essencial to have it all named.

Actually, not different from today, but now we have a plugins who does all the job renaming layers etc and the UX tools interfaces makes it easier to rename things.

Back in the day, turning my Photoshop mockups into a real, fully functional app with reporting, comments, and likes was way beyond my skills.

I knew my HTML and CSS wouldn’t get me far, and hiring a developer wasn’t an option I could afford, so the project ended up buried in a 2011 folder on Google Drive.

Fast forward to today, and I’ve actually built the whole thing myself: the site, the map, photo uploads, user accounts, an agency response system, and even the Android app.

Coming from a design background, it still feels surreal. Fifteen years ago it was just me and a Facebook page; now it’s a complete product that a city government can log into, track reports, and update statuses like “Checking report,” “Resolving,” or “Problem resolved” so residents know the Mayor is responding to their needs.

Local media in Brazil has started covering the launch, which has been a lovely surprise: https://primeirapagina.com.br/infraestrutura/cuiabano-que-morou-10-anos-na-irlanda-cria-plataforma-para-denunciar-buracos-na-capital/

(It’s in Portuguese, but your browser’s translate button handles it fine, and honestly the machine translation is pretty decent these days.)

Why I keep doing this

Roads sound boring until you live on one that floods every rainy season, or you’re the person whose motorcycle went into a hole nobody reported. In a lot of Brazil, the gap between “citizens know exactly what’s broken” and “anyone in charge finds out” is enormous. This is a small attempt to close it.

It’s fully independent. No government funding, no partnership, no permission asked. Just a citizen project that got stubborn enough to last fifteen years.

If you want to poke around:
www.buracosmt.com.br

📱 play.google.com/store /apps/details?id=br.com.buracosmt.twa

I rebuilt a 15-year-old civic project into a real app, and it just launched. was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.