Blog Post

By Esther Adekunbi Gender equality is a very important issue in today’s world, while also a fraught debate. Gender equality can be achieved when men and women...

Over the past few years, Kenya’s innovation scene has come to the limelight, resulting in some naming the country as the technology hub of Africa. Some of the factors that have led to this acclaim are the growing number of shared working spaces, young technology enthusiasts, incubators where developers are mentored and trained, and a craze for mobile application development. The Open AIR team in Kenya – comprised of Dr. Isaac Rutenberg, Victor Nzomo, Louisa Matu-Mureithi and myself – is conducting research on mobile innovation in Kenya. As a researcher on the team, I am helping to conduct research, interviews, and analysis on the case study entitled “Open Collaborative Models of Mobile Tech Innovation in Kenya.”

Open AIR’s New and Emerging Researchers Group (NERG) embodies Open AIR’s commitment to the mentorship and development of students and early career researchers. Open...

By Esther Adekunbi My expectations and enthusiasm to explore this beautiful land called Canada, to interact with its friendly people, to network and collaborate, was rudely...

By Akkila Thirukesan This blog is part one of a series into Akkila’s during her visit to Open AIR’s South Africa hub – the...

By Mireille Yeo Wondia There have been significant global efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 – to ensure access to reliable, affordable and...

The Advancement of Training and Research for Intellectual Property (ATRIP) Conference provides a yearly opportunity for international experts and other academics in the field of intellectual property (IP) to come together and exchange current research. The set-up of ATRIP’s conference enables for ease of networking with similar speakers separated into common sessions. Tana Pistorius, ATRIP President, and her team of organizers, did a superb job in ensuring a diversity of, yet connection between, sessions. Sessions covered a range of topics from new ideas for leveraging traditional knowledge (or “innovation knowledge” as Susy Frankel stated), to plant breeder’s rights, to diversity, art and culture in IP and innovation.

By Uchenna Felicia Ugwu Achieving global food security will require innovation. Processes like plant phenotyping and technologies like digital imaging are examples of innovation that...

En 2013, le réseau Open AIR (Open African Innovation Research) publiait une étude prospective prévoyant un avenir ponctué de bouleversements, comme une pandémie catastrophique à l’échelle...

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.