Curiously Global

Curiously Global approached Typeface with an idea rather than a brief: to enable local people across Peru, and in time elsewhere, to invite travellers into their daily artisan lives for a genuine learning exchange. The question was what that idea should become in practice. What the technology should look like, how a platform would function, how payments, processes, and workflows would work, and what would need to exist on the ground for any of it to hold. The engagement began at that conceptual stage and has continued through custom build and live operation. Typeface remains the project’s technology consultant, and the model is now prepared for replication in other countries, with a rollout to Palestine next.

Before

The proposition was compelling and almost entirely unformed. There was a clear social and commercial intent, to connect Peruvian hosts directly with curious travellers, but no defined model beneath it. The hosts the idea depended on, artisans, farmers, cooks, and families in often remote communities, had neither the digital means to reach an international audience nor, in many cases, the underlying conditions of health, security, and stability that sustained participation would require. The challenge was therefore twofold: to design a platform and operating model that could carry the commercial vision, and to address the community foundations without which it could not be sustained.

Approach

Typeface worked across three connected fronts.

Concept and platform definition

We provided consultancy on what the venture should become: the shape of the technology, how the platform would function, and the processes, workflows, and payment models that would let independent hosts and international travellers transact with confidence. That work established the foundation for Curios Peru, the multi-vendor marketplace through which hosts now publish and manage their own experiences and travellers discover, book, and pay across markets and languages.

Custom build and infrastructure

The platform was built to its own requirements rather than assembled from a generic template. We developed custom templates in PHP and JavaScript to give the marketplace the structure and behaviour it needed, and we provisioned and continue to manage the underlying server infrastructure, including VPS installation, configuration, and ongoing maintenance. The build was approached with replication in mind, so that the same model could be established in another country without being rebuilt from the ground up.

Community establishment

Recognising that the commercial vision rested on the wellbeing of the communities it depended on, we provided advisory support for the creation of a local community project. That work contributed to a successful funding application to a Canadian organisation, and to standing up the structure that put the funding to work: a project team, a technical team, and a network of community ambassadors. The result was Pachaillariy, a constituted Andean association whose rejuvenation work spans food security, ecosystem restoration, water protection, health, and the revaluation of ancestral knowledge.

Outcome

The engagement produced two enduring outputs from a single idea, and it continues. Curios Peru operates as a working marketplace carrying experiences from independent hosts across Cusco, Lima, Callao, San Martín, Piura, and Madre de Dios, in English and Spanish. Pachaillariy operates as an independent association with its own management team, technical team, board of advisors, and ambassadors, supporting improvements in community health, education, and wellbeing in the high Andes. Typeface remains the project’s technology consultant, maintaining the platform and its infrastructure and guiding its development. With the model proven in Peru, it is now prepared for replication elsewhere, with Palestine as the next country to adopt it. The relationship has also reached beyond the platform: Typeface has since written briefs for technology initiatives with the Peruvian Ministry of Tourism, covering rural accessibility projects and approaches to improving tourism networks into challenging and remote locations. A proposition that arrived as an idea now exists as a commercial platform, a funded organisation with people and outcomes on the ground, and a working model ready to travel.