Blog Post

Par Abdelhamid Benhmade À quelques semaines près, l’Organisation mondiale du commerce tiendra sa douzième conférence ministérielle pour discuter de plusieurs dossiers tant complexes qu’épineux, entre...

Le travail panafricain comprend plusieurs défis, entre autre la grandeur du continent, sa diversité, les différences juridiques, et la complexité des langues. Les défis sont particulièrement marqués pour l’innovation africaine. Il y a deux organismes régionaux dans le domaine de la propriété intellectuelle, en plus de l’Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle, ce qui souligne la diversité et les divisions linguistiques et régionales. Pour Open AIR, un réseau de recherche qui travaille dans de différents domaines de l’innovation et la propriété intellectuelle, on rencontre plusieurs défis à cause de cette diversité.

By Nagham El Houssamy and Nadine Weheba This is part two in a three part series. For part one, click here. For part three, click...

In the recently concluded ‘African Ministerial Conference: Intellectual Property for an Emerging Africa’ organized in part by WIPO (here), one cannot help but think that all roads leading to creativity and innovation are paved with intellectual property (IP) laws and institutions. Put differently, the level of creativity and innovation in a society is dependent solely on how we tinker with and enforce IP laws. This ‘IP parochialism’, as I call it, is manifest in the conference program. Of course, the response would be that the conference was solely about IP and as such there was no need to look beyond IP. This is an erroneous view.

By Jake Okechukwu Effoduh Several reports on States’ adoption of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) across the world have indicated that African countries have a “slow” or...

Makerspaces are places where innovators gather together to develop new ideas, technologies and entrepreneurial opportunities. The concept of sharing not only space but also tools and equipment is gaining popularity in many countries. Canada is home to several makerspaces ranging from hackerspaces, to fab labs, to informal studio spaces where people can create, invent, and learn. Some are run for profit, some are non-profit, and some are run by individuals or larger institutions.

By Akkila Thirukesan Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been an exciting tool for development across the continent of Africa. But what does AI have to do with...

By Kgopotso Ditshego Magoro COVID-19 has exposed that, while the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) evangelists are preaching that we are experiencing a revolution, for many...

Back in October 2016, three of our Open AIR Research Fellows had the unique and rewarding opportunity to participate in the Second Annual Institute of African Studies Undergraduate Research Conference at Carleton University’s Institute of African Studies. Undergraduate researchers from across the globe presented their research findings on a wide breadth of topics – from fiction describing Nigerian culture, to professional development for youth in South Africa, to political structures that influenced the welfare state in Tanzania and Kenya.

How can farmers and researchers use open data to work together for food security? Open data and other forms of open access to knowledge help facilitate these relationships.