When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, the island was sent into the second-largest blackout in history, leaving much of its population without access to clean water and crippling its health and communications infrastructure. Amid a lethargic federal response and the months-long power outage that followed, a disaster response rose from the grassroots, built on a local collaborative design model efforts organized from the diaspora. In 2020, two of these initiatives came together to develop the web-based platform ilumiNACIÓN.

Designed by economist and equity activist Alejandra Castrodad-Rodríguez, the platform positions community-based design as a tool to decentralize and democratize Puerto Rico’s energy systems, supporting the recovery of the island’s electrical and social networks by putting power in the hands of its most climate-vulnerable communities. ilumiNACIÓN won the 2025 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Climate Action.