Abstract The emission of greenhouse gases has increased dramatically. Among these, carbon monoxide (CO) has been identified as having the greatest negative impact on human health. These gases are produced mainly by human activities and, therefore, can be reduced if some community actions are carried out. This type of action is known as community empowerment and can be defined as active Participation of the community to achieve common objectives. The first step for empowerment is to know the magnitude of the problem, however, in the case of environmental monitoring, the price of the monitoring devices can be prohibitive. In this research, an air quality-monitoring platform based on the Internet of Things (IoT) is proposed. This platform uses Low-cost devices such as Arduino and Raspberry to measure the air quality in the center of Popayan city. The information is collected, processed and shared with the community through an app. The early results show an impact in the community perception. Also to the lessons learned, can be used to other low-cost developments.