How Designing Crops for Global Food Security and Open AIR are...
By Meghan Blom
Open AIR aims to understand how open collaborative innovation can help businesses scale up and seize the opportunities of the global knowledge economy....
Open Data Brings Farmers and Researchers Together
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.
Expedited COVID-19 R&D: Indigenous Knowledge and ABS Imperative
With the world on edge as the COVID-19 crisis progresses, the scientific community has sprung into gear in search of an effective treatment. Research and Development (R&D) is progressing at unprecedented speeds. Amidst this rapid development, traditional knowledge plays a significant role in scientific endeavours. Through traditional knowledge, medical researchers can gain guidance and inspiration and bypass prolonged and expensive scatter-gun approaches to R&D.
Open Data’s Effect on Food Security
Agricultural data is a vital resource in the effort to address food insecurity. This data is used across the food-production chain. For example, farmers rely on agricultural data to decide when to plant crops, scientists use data to conduct research on pests and design disease resistant plants, and governments make policy based on land use data. As the value of agricultural data is understood, there is a growing call for governments and firms to open their agricultural data.
“Making” Innovation Happen: Open AIR Hosts a Successful Workshop on the...
How the world evolves in the next decade (and beyond) may be dependent upon a new-age movement re-instilling age-old skills: the maker movement. In my ongoing research into the maker movement in Canada and South Africa (see earlier posts here and here), I recently co-hosted a workshop in Ottawa with attendees from the University of Ottawa, representatives of makerspaces in the community, and those with knowledge about makerspaces elsewhere in the world.
A Reflection on the Gendered Perspectives of the Innovation Paradigm in...
By Ghati Nyehita
My ongoing Open AIR, Queen Elizabeth Scholar - Advanced Scholars (QES-AS), research project discusses the extent which South Africa’s copyright and design laws...
Challenging the Meaning of Innovation: Lessons from Refugee-Founded Organizations in Kampala
There is often a limited and constricted view of African innovation, especially when it comes to refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). While there is the common perception that refugees on the continent are resilient, innovative, and resourceful, it is only in the sense that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Too often, refugees and IDPs are perceived as persons with only needs. The reality is that refugees and IDPs are just like everyone else and bring many skills, ideas, and innovations to the global marketplace, both the marketplace of ideas and of goods.
La relance économique passe par la vaccination gratuite et universelle
Par Abdelhamid Benhmade
La guerre des vaccins est-elle désormais plus coûteuse que la guerre contre la pandémie ? Sans doute, la production de plusieurs vaccins...
Call for Papers on Generative Artificial Intelligence and Consumer-facing Technologies
Submissions Due June 15, 2024
The world’s longest-standing scientific conference on information technology management, the Hawaii Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS) is inviting participation at...
WIPO-IGC 43: Logjam Over Two Genetic Resources Texts
By Chidi Oguamanam, cross-posted from ABS Canada
Last Meeting on the GR Text Under the 2022-23 Biennium
May 30-June 3, 2022: Delegates met in-person and virtually...













