Based on many African nations’ recent records of strong economic growth and shifting demographic trends, businesses on the continent are emerging as important players in the global knowledge economy. Yet, if Africa’s tremendous potential for global economic and trade opportunities is to be realised, many issues must be overcome. One of these issues – the focus of Open AIR’s current research – is learning how to scale up knowledge-based businesses without jeopardising sustainability or sacrificing core values. Our hypothesis has been that business models grounded in networked, open, and collaborative innovation can help to make that happen.

The Open AIR network’s research during the past decade shows that innovation is happening in Africa in ways that were previously overlooked. Our research also shows that the role of intellectual property is more nuanced than often portrayed. Parallel to our research in African countries, we have been conducting comparable research in the global North. Cross-regional comparative research has revealed commonalities and contrasts that can be used to improve governance of the global knowledge economy for the benefit of people living in developed and developing countries alike.

Following our 2018 review, we refined our research and added a new core research question: 

How can open, collaborative innovation help scale the impacts of next-generation technologies to promote gender equality, youth employment, and other aspects of inclusion?

This has added new sub-topics that cut across our research themes:

Economic Integration, International Law, and Trade Policy

The African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, is a potential game-changer for intra-African trade, economic integration, law, and IP policy. While free trade in goods and services is the immediate priority, the aim is eventually for significant labour mobility and even a common currency. Research to solve problems associated with economic integration and trade policy are intended to be responsive to these real-time policy impact opportunities on the continent. To assist trade policymakers, we have been exploring IP issues to show how process and substance issues are both important to create fair and balanced IP systems on the continent that stimulate innovation, growth, and competition.

Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls

Our emerging emphasis on gender is, most fundamentally, a matter of women’s rights as human rights. We know that women are as innovative as men but must overcome systemic barriers to the protection and adoption of women-led innovation. Our research has been investigating whether – and if so, how – innovation frameworks not only ignore the disproportionate effects that laws, policies, and practices have on women, but also project male-dominated perspectives on ownership and compensation. For example, we are exploring the relevance and practical uptake of various aspects of ICTs as tools to advance the participation of women in economic development, wealth creation and ultimately poverty alleviation.

Artificial Intelligence

Monumental advances in technology are impacting human lives, including in Africa. Fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies, data, and artificial intelligence (AI) feature prominently in research in Africa and in Canada. An array of activities, including research, teaching, and outreach related to 4IR and AI are taking place at our different hubs. These topics are an extension of our ongoing thematic research on high technology hubs, informal innovation, and Indigenous entrepreneurship in Africa. Open AIR has been taking steps towards advancing an emerging research agenda on AI for development, tackling questions related to AI and gender equality, AI’s future impacts on youth employment, and the inclusion of marginalised communities in African AI policies.

Maker Movement

Open AIR is one of the pioneers of maker movement research. We see maker communities as key drivers of collaborative innovation, socio-economic inclusion, and livelihood development in Africa. Open AIR researchers have studied the activities of maker communities in South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Senegal. We have also funded and jointly convened – with the South African Maker Collective – a South African Maker Movement Workshop in Pretoria, and funded and presented at Africa Open Science and Hardware (AfricaOSH) summits in Kumasi (Ghana) and Dar es Salaam. In Canada, we have presented at two editions of the University of Ottawa’s Ontario Makers and Mentors Innovation Conference (OMMIC), conducted research interviews with Ontario maker communities, and participated in the Great Lakes Gathering for Open Science Hardware (GOSH). Moving forward, we plan to collaborate with AfricaOSH, the Africa Makerspace Network, and the South African Maker Collective in development of a set of open access online resources under the theme of “Sustainability Guidelines and Best Practices for African Maker Communities”.

Across the research clusters we are investigating several sub-questions:

• Which knowledge management strategies work to facilitate collaborative business models in practice, and which do not?
• How can organisations tailor strategies to accentuate benefits or mitigate problems of existing IP laws and related regulations?
• What kinds of policies would facilitate integration and exchanges of knowledge and innovation across formal and informal sectors, and how?
• What kinds of professional intermediaries seem to deepen integration and exchanges of knowledge and innovation across formal and informal sectors, and how?

To implement the first step in our research, we adopted the method of “situational analysis” through case studies throughout the African continent. We addressed our research questions at the situational level, that is, where the units of analysis are not micro or macro, but are instead at the intersection of actors and forces that shape innovation situations. This approach enabled our researchers to engage with mixed methods, within the various sub-studies, for example, literature reviews, internet-based data mining, social network analysis, key informant interviews, and surveys.

The method of grounded theory building allowed us to conduct our research by beginning real-world empirical evidence before solidifying a theoretical framework. That meant we were developing new conceptual models based on our network’s on-the-ground research observations, rather than entrenching assumptions based on questionable theories. At the same time, we realised that some preliminary theory building, consolidating and refining terminology and taxonomies, was helpful in order to conduct our case studies.

We are using our new empirical evidence and theoretical frameworks to inform the development and design of recommendations to different countries’ policymakers and influential stakeholders. Where applicable, we are suggesting policy changes to facilitate improved marketplace frameworks and new practical tools for businesses to successfully scale up their innovations, thereby helping to further stimulate innovation. To ensure the largest impact, we have been combining our empirical and theoretical methods with “action research”, thus ensuring Open AIR’s research beneficiaries are directly involved in the execution of our partnership.