Blog Post

By Esther Ekong Despite the very significant role women entrepreneurs in developing countries play, their businesses lack financial security, which in turn stymies their economic growth. This is...

Earlier this year, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a two-day workshop on “Supporting Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Use the Intellectual Property System in Their Competitive Strategy” at the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology in Cairo, Egypt, which some of our Open AIR NERG members attended. The goal of this meeting was to discuss how to encourage young innovators to protect their inventions by patenting them at the Egyptian Patent Office. The workshop had vibrant and sometimes heated discussions between these innovators and government officials regarding many of the obstacles faced in the patenting process in Egypt.

Funded by the Open AIR network, my case study is about skills development and innovation at Ghana’s Suame Magazine Industrial Cluster. The research I am conducting seeks to understand the processes and systems that contribute to how knowledge is or is not shared and how skills are acquired in one of West Africa’s largest informal sector industrial clusters, Suame Magazine. How skills are learned and what is communicated between those in the industrial cluster will help us to learn how innovations are shared and taught among these informal businesses.

Researchers from the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network have been awarded almost CAD 750,000 for a new three-year research project, Catalyzing AI’s Potential in Africa...

C’est dans un contexte réglementaire favorable à l’innovation qu’on peut trouver les solutions aux problèmes sociaux les plus pressants. Mentionnons à titre d’exemples la...

By Eslam Shaaban Innovators, especially in the start-up stage, are facing the problem of financing their projects. In Egypt, there is great potential to develop...

By Mnena Abuku Women in Africa have faced a diversity of struggles in their efforts toward sustainable development. This is largely because globalisation has brought more burdens upon...

Open AIR's Canada hub has been awarded a prestigious multimillion dollar Partnership Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. Professors Jeremy de Beer and Chidi Oguamanam, both from the Common Law Section at the University of Ottawa, have been awarded a grant to expand the Open AIR network and to conduct further research.

By Dana Elbashbishy On the 8th of February 2018, members of the Open African Innovation Research Partnership (Open AIR) gathered in Accra, Ghana to share research...

By Jeremy de Beer and Yvonne Ndelle The recent conference hosted by the Canada Africa Parliamentary Association (CAAF) served as a pivotal platform for discussing...