Michael works on the Web Foundation’s open data programmes as the Open Data Technical Lead. Michael is an open data specialist and advocate, interested in international development collaboration through the use of ICT.

Michael helped to pioneer an xml-based open standard for sharing international development project/activity information (IDML) beginning in 1998. IDML was adopted by the World Bank’s Global Development Gateway Aida project, later to become AidData.org. Michael also assisted the International Aid Transparency Initiative in the early development of the IATI standard in 2010.

Prior to joining the Web Foundation, Michael was a technical and senior program officer for the Bellanet Secretariat housed at the International Development Research Centre for over 10 years. He worked on a range of projects from development collaboration tools such as Dgroups (later to become a Foundation managed by a consortium of donors) to providing low-bandwidth tools to help people access the web through email. His work involved collaboration with a wide range of development sectors from climate change to demining.

More recently, Michael has been supporting efforts at publishing open aid data and has worked with IDRC, DFATD, UNOCHA, and NSI, among others.

Michael is based in Montreal, Quebec.