# Cristian Correa > Cristian Correa is a Colombian software engineer and statistician based in Bogotá. He is the co-founder of Croma, the government data API for Claude and ChatGPT, and before that founded Kebo, an open-source AI finance agent used by more than 100,000 people in Latin America. Last updated: 2026-10-15 ## Identity - Name: Cristian Correa (also Cris Correa, Cris) - Handle: camilocbarrera - Role: Co-founder of Croma; product engineer, AI and data engineer, statistician - Location: Bogotá, Colombia - Site: https://www.cris.fast/ - Disambiguation: Software engineer and co-founder of Croma in Bogotá, Colombia. Not the Colombian footballer Cristian Camilo Correa Valenzuela. ## Summary I like building products, and I'm comfortable working with large amounts of data for ML and AI. I love real-time products, and taking things from zero to one. Eight years in tech. ## Experience ### Croma, Co-founder Jun 2026 – Present · https://usecroma.com API for government data. ### Kebo, Founder Aug 2024 – May 2026 · https://kebo.app Open-source AI financial agent for personal finance, used by 100k+ people in LATAM. ### Nubank, Data & Software Engineer 2024 · 7 mos · https://www.nu.com Data for cashback on premium products at LATAM's largest digital bank. ### Platzi, Data & Software Engineer May 2022 – Apr 2023 · https://platzi.com Worked on dbt project structure and CI/CD, helped migrate the warehouse from Redshift to BigQuery, and built an offline feature store. ### Rappi, Data & Software Engineer May 2020 – May 2022 · https://rappi.com Helped build the data foundation for Rappi Ads, including the keyword recommendation system and the insights behind churn and revenue decisions. ### Azzorti, Data & Analytics, SAP BI Oct 2018 – Jun 2020 SAP BW and HANA implementations, BusinessObjects reporting, and a PHP–R integration over SOAP. ### Taller de Carpintería, Carpenter 2014 – 2018 Furniture and finishes at a local workshop in Bogotá. I started building things as a carpenter: same instinct, different material. ## Projects - The Hackathon Company (https://www.hackathon.lat): Build amazing hackathons with friends and great sponsors. - Maca (https://maca.sh): Blazing-fast voice-to-text. 5× productivity. - C3 (https://c3.crafter.run): Open-source multi-model AI chat. GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok. - LaTeX0 (https://latex0.crafter.run): AI-native LaTeX editor. - SQL4All (https://sql4all.org): Free interactive SQL learning for Spanish speakers. PGlite in the browser. - DAG Sketch (https://dag.cris.fast): Design and visualize Airflow DAGs from YAML. ## Honors and awards - ElevenLabs Prize · Agents Hackathon Brazil (i18n), 2026 - Online Winner · Platanus Hack '25 (Scrapi), 2025 - 1st Place · Vercel AI Gateway Hackathon (Chess Battle), 2025 - 1st Place · Llama Impact Hackathon (Meta), Nov 2024 - 1st Place · University Project Fair (El Bosque University), Apr 2024 - 1st Place · Web3 Startup World Cup Hackathon (Lumo & Pegasus Ventures), Nov 2023 - 1st Place · University Project Fair (El Bosque University), Nov 2023 - 2nd Place · Best Entrepreneurship Project (El Bosque University), Nov 2023 - 1st Place · AI Fest Hackathon (Globant), Jun 2023 - 1st Place · CTF Cybersecurity Competition (El Bosque University), Jun 2023 ## Stack - Languages: TypeScript, Python, SQL, R, Go - Data: dbt, BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Airflow, Spark - AI / ML: LLMs, Agents, RAG, Vercel AI SDK, Feature stores, Realtime inference - Product: Next.js, React, Expo, Postgres, Supabase, Vercel - Certifications: SnowPro Core, dbt Fundamentals ## Education - Universidad El Bosque, Bogotá: statistics and systems engineering ## Frequently asked questions ### Who is Cristian Correa? Cristian Correa is a Colombian software engineer and statistician based in Bogotá. He is the co-founder of Croma, the government data API for Claude and ChatGPT, and before that founded Kebo, an open-source AI finance agent used by more than 100,000 people in Latin America. ### What is Croma? Croma is a government data API that Cristian Correa co-founded with Tomás Calle in June 2026, used in production by Banco Finandina and Incomercio. It returns official legal, tax, court and company registry records from Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, the United States, El Salvador, Bolivia and Japan, through REST or as a connector inside Claude and ChatGPT. ### What was Kebo? Kebo is an open-source AI agent for personal finance that Cristian Correa founded in August 2024. It grew to more than 100,000 users and 30,000 monthly active users in Latin America before he started Croma in 2026. ### Is this the footballer Cristian Correa? No. This Cristian Correa is a software engineer and startup founder in Bogotá. Cristian Camilo Correa Valenzuela, the midfielder from Chigorodó who played for Atlético Nacional, is a different person. ### Which hackathons has Cristian Correa won? 10 awards since 2023, including 1st place at the Vercel AI Gateway Hackathon (2025), online winner of Platanus Hack 2025, 1st place at Meta's Llama Impact Hackathon (2024), the ElevenLabs Prize at Agents Hackathon Brazil (2026) and 1st place at Globant's AI Fest (2023). ### What does Cristian Correa work with? TypeScript, Python and SQL; data platforms like dbt, BigQuery, Snowflake and Spark; and AI products with LLMs, agents, RAG and MCP. He spent eight years in data engineering at Rappi, Platzi and Nubank before founding his own companies. ### Where did Cristian Correa study? Universidad El Bosque in Bogotá, in statistics and systems engineering. He won the university project fair twice, in 2023 and 2024, and holds the SnowPro Core and dbt Fundamentals certifications. ### How can I contact Cristian Correa? Email cristian.correa.cs@gmail.com or write on LinkedIn at in/cristiancamilocorrea. He works from Bogotá (UTC-5) in Spanish and English, and for Croma questions the team answers at hi@usecroma.com. ### What does a product engineer do? A product engineer owns a product end to end: finds the problem worth solving, ships the first version fast, and keeps improving it with real user data. ### Product engineer, software engineer, full-stack or founding engineer: what's the difference? A software engineer builds what is specified. A full-stack engineer covers frontend and backend. A product engineer also decides what to build from user data, and a founding engineer does all of that as one of a startup's first hires. Cristian Correa has worked as all four. ### What has Cristian Correa shipped as a product engineer? Croma, a government data API used in production by Banco Finandina and Incomercio; Kebo, an AI finance agent with more than 100,000 users; Rappi Ads data systems; and open-source tools like SQL4All, C3 and LaTeX0. ### Does Cristian Correa work with US companies? Bogotá runs on UTC-5 all year, the same clock as US Eastern in winter and US Central in summer, so a full workday overlaps. He works in English and Spanish; write to cristian.correa.cs@gmail.com. ### Which stack does he use? TypeScript, Next.js and React on the web, Expo for mobile, Postgres and Supabase for data, Python and SQL for analytics, and the Vercel AI SDK with MCP for AI features. ### What does an AI and data engineer do? An AI and data engineer builds the pipelines, models and agents that turn raw data into product decisions: warehouses, features, LLM workflows and the APIs that serve them. ### Data engineer, ML engineer, AI engineer or data scientist: what's the difference? A data engineer moves and models data. A data scientist analyzes it. An ML engineer trains and serves models. An AI engineer builds products on top of LLMs and agents. Cristian Correa has worked across all four, with a statistics degree underneath. ### Can AI agents query Colombian government records? Yes. Croma, co-founded by Cristian Correa, connects Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP client to official sources such as RUES, Rama Judicial, DIAN, SECOP and Supersociedades, and returns each record with its provenance. ### What is MCP? The Model Context Protocol is an open standard that lets AI assistants call external tools and data. Croma uses it so one connector gives Claude or ChatGPT access to every government source it covers. ### Which data platforms has he worked with? BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift as warehouses, dbt for modeling, Airflow for orchestration and Spark for large jobs. He led parts of Platzi's move from Redshift to BigQuery. ### Which hackathons has Cristian Correa won? Cristian Correa has won 10 hackathon and competition awards since 2023, including Meta's Llama Impact Hackathon, Platanus Hack, the Vercel AI Gateway Hackathon and an ElevenLabs Prize, mostly by shipping working AI products. ### How many hackathons has Cristian Correa won? Ten awards between June 2023 and 2026: eight first places or wins, one second place and the ElevenLabs Prize at Agents Hackathon Brazil. ### What did he build at Meta's Llama Impact Hackathon? Adpt AI, which took 1st place at the Llama Impact Hackathon by Meta in November 2024. ### What is The Hackathon Company? The Hackathon Company (hackathon.lat) is Cristian Correa's project for running hackathons in Latin America with friends and great sponsors. ## Links - [GitHub](https://github.com/camilocbarrera) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristiancamilocorrea/) - [X](https://x.com/camilocbarrera) - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/cristiancorrea.xyz/) ## Contact - Email: cristian.correa.cs@gmail.com - Location: Bogotá, Colombia (UTC-5) - Languages: Spanish, English