The C2016 organizing committee is pleased to announce this year’s exciting keynote panels:

Silicon Valley Thinking for Evaluators

What can evaluation practitioners learn from a pioneer in leading organizations to customer-focused innovation and the creation of products and experiences that delight customers?  How can “design thinking” help organizations make more significant, relevant and timely improvements? Catherine Courage, native Newfoundlander and internationally renowned leader in design and organizational change in in Silicon Valley, will explore these questions and more as she challenges evaluators to think beyond our typical approaches.

Mountain or Everest? Improving Sustainable Development Outcomes with Evaluation

This panel will explore the question: can evaluation realistically be used to help improve sustainable development outcomes? Can it transcend power structures and multitude of interests that are often at play at an international, regional and local level? Paul McAleavey, Head of Air and Climate Change Department at the European Environment Agency (EEA), will offer lessons from evaluation in sustainable development from an international perspective, specifically in the context of European Union environmental policy. Kelly Vodden, Canadian regional development scholar, will share insights gleaned from evaluations of regional development planning in Canada. Finally, Saqamaw Misel Joe, leader of the Miawpukek community and evaluation user, will provide key messages on how evaluation can influence sustainable development at a local level, within an indigenous community. The panel will share what works well but also expose areas where evaluation must push the boundaries further.

The Future: Beyond here there be dragons. Or are those just icebergs?

Michael Quinn Patton, world-renowned evaluation leader who has significantly contributed to evolutions in the field of evaluation, will offer his assessment and synthesis of the current place and trajectory of evaluation, as well as look beyond the edge into the future.  He’ll offer insights as a historian, contemporary practitioner, and futurist, all rolled into one kaleidoscopic portrayal of the state of the art and practice of program evaluation.

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