mikocanares Business Planning, Capacity Building, Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, innovation, Local economic development, Training

Step Up Conducts Community Based-Enterprise Training and Mentoring Sessions for Ofamen Cacao Farm

Step Up Consulting Services conducted a series of workshops to capacitate the men and women of Calunasan, Calape Bohol who are involved in making charcoal briquettes.

Through the grant provided by the farm which the family through its CEO Ms Joy Pulchra Ofamen-Sarabia, the briquette processing equipment and machinery are shared with 40 families who are now engaged in briquette making using cacao pods and other farm organic wastes that could otherwise end up polluting the environment. The briquettes provide access to alternative and cheaper form of energy over wood, burns cleaner firewood and release fewer greenhouse gases.

The team conducted a series of training workshops on business development, costing and pricing, workflow management system, enterprise models, and marketing to make their briquette products commercially viable and sustainable. These workshops were held beginning November 2022 and will continue towards the first quarter of the next year.

The Ofamen Cacao Farm in Calunasan, Calape, Bohol is a recipient of the WHWise: i B L E n D N I C E 4WomEn*, a program launched by the Department of Science and Technology- Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development l in partnership with Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT). MSU IIT is the program’s main implementer in collaboration with Miriam College (MC) and the University of the Philippines – Mindanao (UP-Min).

*WHWise: i B L E n D N I C E 4WomEn (innovation thru Building and Leveraging Entrepreneurship Development, Networking and Inclusive Community Engagement for Women Entrepreneurs) or Women-Helping-Women: Innovating Social Enterprises, is a program that brings together government agencies and private organizations to seek out and prepare women-led social enterprises for growth, scalability, and subsequent Venture Capitalist funding. The program provides a suite of services, including early-stage funding, training, skills development, mentorship, and business incubation. More importantly, it will provide access to technology to enable even women from rural communities to be part of the global economy.

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 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.