mikocanares conference presentations, core expertise, Core services, Data empowerment, data for development, Governance, Keynote speeches, Open Data, Training

Step Up Strategy Advisor Speaks at Indonesia’s Ministry of Home Affairs Forum

Mr. Michael Canares, Step Up Consulting’s strategy advisor was invited by the Indonesian Ministry of Home Affairs to speak at their workshop on “Leading Innovation in a Digital World”. The workshop was held online, attended by more than 200 participants – leaders of MOHA across Indonesia, last 24 November 2021.

Mr. Canares spoke about data-driven governance. He was invited through the Ford Foundation, once a partner of the Open Data Lab Jakarta where he was the Senior Research Manager for digital citizenship for almost three years. Mr. Canares spoke about concrete examples were governments across the world use data to improve public service delivery, strengthen effective public management, increase accountability mechanisms for public officials, and enhance citizen participation in governance.

mikocanares Asia, conference presentations, Data empowerment, data for development, Keynote speeches

Step Up Strategy Adviser Speaks at Tbilisi Data Fest

Michael Canares, Step Up’s Strategy Adviser, speaks at the annual Datafest Tbilisi on the topic “Data Empowerment”. As can be recalled, Canares is one of the authors of the blog Data Empowerment hosted at Medium (see https://medium.com/data-empowerment).

DataFest Tbilisi 2020 is the 4th edition of the annual conference in Georgia about data, science, communications and technology. Due to the pandemic, the conference is moved online and was held on 15 to 17 December 2020. The goal of the conference is to connect professionals working with data from different industries in order to encourage cross-sector collaboration. Conference attendees usually come from the media, civil society, business, and public agencies from around the world.

The conference has 5 parallel tracks: (1) Communication (Journalism, Design, Art); (2) Activism (Human Rights, Politics, Elections, Open data); (3) Technology (Data Science, AI, Tools); (4) Business (Analytics, Finance, Products, Policies); and (5) Life (Healthcare, Mobility, Education, etc.). Mr. Canares spoke at the main stage on 15 December 2020.

mikocanares Capacity Building, conference presentations, core expertise, Core services, COVID 19, covid-19, innovation, Keynote speeches

Step Up Strategy Advisor Keynotes PICPA Middle East E-Conference

Michael Canares, Step Up’s Strategy Advisor, was the keynote speaker of the PICPA-UAE sponsored leg of the 2020 PICPA Middle East E-Conference held last 14 August 2020 via Zoom. Mr. Canares spoke about the topic, “Thriving in The Current Normal: Agility and Adaptability During Times of Uncertainty”, to over 150 attendees.

His key messages focused on the following key points:

Point 1: The PANDEMIC affects ALL OF US. But it will not affect EACH ONE OF US IN THE SAME WAY.

Point 2: Our AGILITY and ADAPTABILITY matters.

Point 3. The PANDEMIC invites us to REINVENT OURSELVES.

Mr. Canares also talks about the concept of “Low Touch Economy”, an analytical frame created by the Board of Innovation, that refers to the “the way businesses across the globe have been forced to operate in order to succeed as a result of Covid-19”.  He also talked about five essential tips on gliding through the crisis as a professional, based on the work of Hermina Ibarra of the London Business School.

mikocanares conference presentations, data for development, Uncategorized, workshops

Step Up Attends WIKA Workshop in Germany

wika workshop

Step Up’s Strategy Advisor, Michael Canares, spoke at the recently concluded WIKA-Workshop 2019 that focused on “The Role of Civil Society in Cultural Relations”. The workshop was held at the WeltRaum at the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA) in Stuttgart, Germany on 25-26 September 2019.

The rationale of the workshop is best described by the workshop organizers below:

“Civil society actors are gaining influence and are becoming political change-makers. Their local embedding and engagement at the grassroots level and the strength of internationally working NGOs who use their cross-border cooperation as a means of empowerment make them attractive partners for state-involved actors. The WIKA Workshop seeks to reflect on interdisciplinary topics such as “Cultural Cooperation and Shrinking Spaces”, “Youth as Civil Society Actors” and “Civil Society and Statehood” to relate them directly to fields of action of cultural relations and education policy.”

Mr. Canares presented his work on advancing digital literacy for girls in Indonesia funded by Goethe Institut Indonesien when he was still working as Senior Research Manager of the World Wide Web Foundation stationed at the Open Data Lab Jakarta.  For more details of this work, please visit the lessons learned paper written by Mr. Canares for the Jakarta Lab.

mikocanares conference presentations, Data empowerment, data for development, innovation, Lectures, Open Data, workshop design, workshops

Step Up Strategy Advisor Attends Data Innovation Clinic in Istanbul

11July2019 (7)Michael Canares, Step Up Strategy Advisor, is one of the individual experts invited by the United Nations Development Program Regional Hubs based in Istanbul and Amman to speak and attend in a Data Innovation Clinic held at the Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus last 9-11 July 2019.

Dubbed as #NextGenUNDP, the data innovation clinic aimed to reflect on data innovation work implemented by UNDP in both regional hubs, introduce approaches, methods, and tools in data innovation, and frame ways forward.  The activity was attended by 47 participants from 16 countries across Europe, Central Asia, Arab States and Africa, with 10 speakers from Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States.

Different topics were discussed during the data clinic. Michael Canares talked about the concept of data empowerment, one of his primary advocacies, while others talked about positive deviance, thick data, artificial intelligence, behavioral insights, big data, satellite data, machine learning, among others.

mikocanares conference presentations, Financial Management, Keynote speeches

Step Up Strategy Advisor Keynotes University Academic Forum

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Holy Name University held its university days last February 13-18 2018 with the theme “Honoring Traditions, Celebrating Milestones”.  Step Up strategy advisor, Mr. Michael Canares was invited to keynote the Academic Forum held at HNU Main Campus on 15 February 2018. The theme of the academic forum was “Realizing Dreams of Financial Stability”.

Mr. Canares dedicated his well-received talk to Atty. Mia Manuelita Mascarinas-Green, his teacher in both accountancy and law school. Atty. Mia, who died a gruesome death on 15 February 2017, exactly a year ago, is one of the university’s esteemed professors.  In his talk, Mr. Canares emphasized on key strategic and operational financial skills that every person should possess to ensure not only financial stability, but more importantly, financial sustainability.

The academic forum was attended by close to 200 university faculty members and staff.  It can be recalled that Mr. Canares has also taught in the university for 10 years. His teaching stint was capped by the Most Outstanding Finance Educator of the Philippines award conferred to him by the Central Bank of the Philippines, the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, and Citibank.

 

mikocanares conference presentations, core expertise, Open Data, Research Projects

Step Up Presents at ICEDEG Conference in Ecuador

The Panel Members and ICEDEG 2015 Ecuador
The Panel Members and ICEDEG 2015 Ecuador

Managing consultant of Step Up Consulting Services joins the panel of four speakers conducting a tutorial on Open Government and Open Data at the International Conference on E-Democracy and E-Government.  The conference was held at the Universidad de Las Americas in Quito, Ecuador, last 8-10 April, 2015.

Michael Canares spoke about Open Government and Open Data in Asia and joined Sandra Elena and German Stalker of the Centro de Implementación de Políticas Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento (Argentina) , Francois Van Schalkwyk of African Minds (South Africa), and Carlos Jimenez (Spain), founder of the IEEE e-government initiative.

The participation of Michael Canares in the conference was funded by a paper dissemination grant from the International Development Research Center through World Wide Web Foundation.

mikocanares conference presentations, Governance, Local Government Units, Open Data, Research Projects

Step Up Presents Research in 8th ICEGOV – Portugal

Michael Canares with other members of the ODDC network
Michael Canares with other members of the ODDC network

Michael Canares, managing consultant of Step Up Consulting Services, presented his research entitled – “Full Disclosure Policy and its Impact on Local Governance in the Philippines”, in the recently concluded International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance held in the historic city of Gumaraes, Portugal. The research paper was one of the outputs of the Open LGU Research Project which Step Up implemented in 2013.

Mr. Canares also facilitated the session on Open Data Intermediaries together with Sumandro Chattapadhyay of Data Meet India. The study on Open Data intermediaries is one of the Web Foundation-funded synthesis papers on Open Data in Developing Countries research that Step Up manages together with a team of researchers from India and South Africa.  In the session, Mr. Canares was joined by other members of the Open Data Research Network – Leo Mutuko of Ihub (Kenya), Sandra Elena of CIPPEC (Argentina), and Ricardo Matheus of Brazil.

ICEGOV is a series of International Conferences on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance taking place annually around the world. The series focuses on the use of technology to transform the working of government and its relationships with citizens, businesses and other non-state actors in order to improve public governance and its contribution to public policy and development (EGOV).

The ICEGOV conference series is coordinated by the United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV), based in Guimarães, Portugal, in continuation of the work of the Center for Electronic Governance at UNU-IIST in Macao, China, which founded the ICEGOV series.

mikocanares conference presentations, Research Projects

Step Up Represents the Philippines in European Evaluation Society 2014

Mr. Canares during one of the EES sessions
Mr. Canares (seated, first row, second from left) during one of the EES 2014 sessions

Step Up Managing Consultant Michael Canares attended the European Evaluation Society Conference in Dublin, Ireland last September 26-30 and is the only author presenting a research paper on the Philippines. Mr. Canares was also the chair of one of the sessions on “Evaluation for Organizational Effectiveness”.

The European Evaluation Society  is Europe’s premier evaluation organization that seeks “to promote the theory, practice and utilization of high quality evaluation in Europe and beyond. This goal is pursued inter alia by bringing together academics, policy makers and practitioners, by setting up events and by offering platforms that connect relevant disciplines, partners and sectors and encourage knowledge exchange, good practice dissemination, professional co-operation and bridge building.”

The conference in Dublin was attended by more than 500 academics and practitioners on evaluation coming from different countries across the globe.  The conference was held at the Conference Center Dublin.

 

mikocanares Associates, conference presentations, Governance, Research Projects

Step Up Managing Consultant speaks at GDI Conference

GDI DIE Green and Social
Canares, Loewe, Perch, and Schafer in the panel on Effects of Poverty-Oriented Policies on the Environment

Michael Canares, managing consultant of Step Up Consulting, was one of the few invited speakers in the recently concluded conference on Green and Social: Managing Synergies and Trade-offs at the Deutsche Well, Bonn, Germany last 12-14 March 2014.  The conference, jointly sponsored by the German Development Institute and the Poverty Reduction, Equity, and Growth Network (PEGNet), aims to bridge the gap between environmental and social perspectives on development. Mr. Canares represented the HNU Center for Research and Publication as editor of its academic journal, the Lumina.

Mr. Canares presented his paper entitled “Making Conditional Cash Transfers Green:  Opportunities for a Welfare and Environmental Agenda in the Philippines.” It looks at the potential and trade-offs of adding environmental conditions to the Philippine government’s cash conditional transfer program – the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, otherwise known as 4Ps.

He was in the same panel as Leisa Perch of the World Center for Sustainable Development in Brazil.  The panel was moderated by Markus Loewe of the German Development Institute while George Schafer of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) was the panel discussant.   According to one of the organizers of the conference, Carmen Richerzhagen, there were a total of 90 paper submissions received, and only 14 were accepted for presentation at the conference.

The conference was attended by roughly 200 people from all over the globe.  Marianne Fay, chief economist for sustainable development and climate change at the World Bank, and Ernst Ulrich Von Weizsacker of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) were the keynote speakers.