Open AIR North Africa Distinguished Speaker Series: Ibrahim Al-Safadi on Makerspaces and Employment Opportunities
On 10 December 2016, as part of the RiseUp Summit in Cairo, Open AIR’s North Africa hub hosted their first Distinguished Speaker event with Ibrahim Al-Safadi, the CEO of Luminous Education. The Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) invited Al-Safadi to speak about the role of “makerspaces” to tackle unemployment and to share his experiences in how to create a makerspace that ensures that the individuals involved end up with jobs.
ICT strategy development: from design to implementation case of Egypt
ICT strategy development from start to finish, from design to implementation should cater to the different needs of the community whether it is societal, economic, business and political with an aim to realize universal access to optimize the impact in terms of scalability and sustainability.
A Framework for Assessing Technology Hubs in Africa
Authored by: Jeremy de Beer, Paula Millar, Jacquelene Mwangi, Victor Nzomo, and Isaac Rutenberg
Abstract: This article fills a gap in the research on technology hubs...
Evidence-based Intellectual Property Policymaking
Authored by: Jeremy de Beer
Abstract: Governments have long been interested in making intellectual property (IP) policy based on sound evidence. There is a large...
Recognizing Informal Sector Innovation: Implications for Traditional Knowledge Development in Africa
In 2012, a civil society group called the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), raised concerns about a draft Africa Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) plant variety protection protocol. AFSA was concerned,
Gender, IP, and Innovation: Open AIR’s Future Research
The Open AIR network seeks to bring, among other things, a gendered perspective to our research. We are exploring the nexus between feminist literature, intellectual property, information technology, and innovation; connecting these approaches into the network’s future priorities.
El Houssamy Presents at Egypt Entrepreneurship Summit
The Summit was part of a series of events that took place in Egypt in conjunction with the Global Entrepreneurship Week. A2K4D’s Senior Research Officer, Nagham El Houssamy, participated in the summit, speaking on the Data-Driven Innovation Panel on Friday, November 18.
Professor Carys Craig Infuses the Open Access Movement with Feminism at the University of...
Is intellectual property (IP) gender neutral? No. Neither is the dominant discourse on innovation. Recognizing this bias is the first step toward remedying it.
Annual Report 2016
2016 saw Open AIR moving "From Project to Partnerships".
Open AIR’s primary goal is to uncover new insights in the balance between intellectual property (IP)...
Understanding the Dynamics of Knowledge Transfer in Nigeria’s Otigba Hardware Cluster
So what is the Otigba Computer Village? Oyelaran-Oyeyinka in 2006 described it as the biggest ICT hub of West Africa – perhaps the biggest ICT market in all of Africa – because of the size and the volume of business activities carried out on a daily basis within the cluster. The research I have been conducting looks at the knowledge dynamics at play in the informal ICT businesses in the cluster, with a view to understanding how these dynamics drive informal enterprises’ innovation and scaling-up. While other studies of the cluster have evaluated the size and capacity of the cluster, the evolution of the cluster, mode of operation, performance, sustainability and constraints, there are no studies looking at how the local businesses identify new and useful knowledge. With over 5000 businesses in the cluster, there is bound to be knowledge exchange either through spillover or conscious transfer. How is this happening?
