This paper describes state of the art information visualization research undertaken within the Sistemas Interactivos group at the Universidad Technologica de la Mixteca to make large scale complex data-sets more accessible for scientists and the general public. Our central thesis is that by making data more accessible we can improve the efficiency of our scientists and democratize data for the general public toward improving development. This is particularly important in traditionally disadvantaged areas such as the state of Oaxaca where the state of development lags behind that of other parts of Mexico and the efficient use of human and physical resources are essential to improve this situation. We also demonstrate that information visualization is an important tool for collaboration and would like to encourage the use of information visualization in university systems, such as the SUNEO of Oaxaca (Seara Vázquez 2009), where regular face to face collaboration between staff can be difficult due to the large distances between campuses. The examples of information visualization presented in the paper are applied in the fields of bioinformatics, taxonomy, logistics, intelligent agent research, spoken language systems and information retrieval.