Colombia · Open market · Operating partnership
Access on this page: Signed: Lengua de Señas Colombiana — pending How this page is tested
This page in sign language
Signed end to end by a Deaf creator, credited by name. International Sign on the global site; your national sign language on your country page.
ally is a platform where creators make sign language, captions and audio description — and one API delivers it to any screen. We are looking for the partner who will build the Colombian operation with us.
Why we are looking for a partner
One partner video — spoken, captioned and signed by a creator we already work with. It is shared across every open-market page. We do not fake a local signer to look established here.
The people
Colombia's sign language is Lengua de Señas Colombiana, recognised by Ley 324 of 1996 — among the first in Latin America — with State duties to promote it, fund interpreter training and use it on television. Ley 982 of 2005 defines it as the natural language of Deaf communities. The National Institute for the Deaf, INSOR, is the State's own body; the Constitutional Court has repeatedly enforced Deaf people's rights, most recently ruling on 21 April 2022 that universities must provide interpreters.
In plain words
Below is who lives here and what reaches them. Every number on this page is a research seed, not an audited claim — we mark them, rather than publish numbers we cannot yet stand behind.
Why captions alone do not close this gap → Why sign language
The mandate
recognises Colombian Sign Language as the Deaf community's own means of communication; the State shall promote it, finance interpreter training and use it on television.
Article 1, numeral 10: sign language is the natural language of Deaf communities; equal-opportunity measures for Deaf and deafblind people.
higher-education institutions must guarantee interpreters for Deaf adults as a reasonable accommodation for access and permanence.
Obligated buyers: the State under Ley 324's promotion and television duties, higher education under T-138 of 2022 and the line of judgments it belongs to, broadcasters under the television regulator's accessibility resolutions, and public bodies under Ley 1618 of 2013.
The gap
Colombian compliance is a right vindicated case by case. The law is thirty years old, the institute exists, and the tutela — Colombia's fast constitutional action — works; but each judgment binds one university, one agency, one channel. Television accessibility sits in regulator resolutions rather than routine practice. Subtitles assume reading fluency in Spanish; LSC is the Deaf community's first language.
What we bring
These are patterns, not promises — each one happened somewhere, and each carries its source. The place is abstracted because the pattern is what transposes.
Pattern
A replicable template: the ordinance language, the budget logic and the service behind it travel together. Any city can copy it.
Two city ordinances — one on healthcare accessibility, one on cinema accessibility — have passed first reading, with ally as technical partner.
Receipt: Parañaque City Council records
Pattern
The platform exists before the first contract. Buyers pay for a service, not for research.
ally's pre-operating research and development was supported by a national science research grant and a city government grant.
Receipt: company fact
Pattern
Real usage, real feedback, and the model for any school or district that wants signed content on what students already watch.
A telco-funded 2021 pilot brought the platform to a Deaf school community of about 800 users.
Receipt: company fact
We publish our signals — including the zeros — on the impact page.
The partnership
The structure is a licensed market operation, built with the local community. Terms are discussed directly.
The playbook
The partner
Operators with standing in accessibility, media, telecom, or government services. Deaf-led organisations and entrepreneurs are explicitly welcome — the best operator of an accessibility market may come from the community itself. Investors are welcome alongside an operator, or to introduce one.
Why now
Colombia has the oldest recognition on this continent and the most active constitutional court on Deaf rights; what it has never had is a delivery layer that makes the tutela unnecessary. A partner who supplies LSC at scale turns thirty years of judgments into service.
Next step
Write to us — by form, by email, or with a signed or spoken video message. From there: an introductory call, an NDA, the Colombian market dossier, then terms.
Questions