Blog Post

By Ahou Rachel Koumi In 2019, my niece and I enjoyed a two-day outing to the famous beaches of Assinie, in Côte d'Ivoire. I have fond...

By Chris Armstrong The African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem (mAkE) Project, of which Open AIR is part, has launched its Open Catalogue of Business Models (OCBM)....

By Victor Nzomo In the midst of two decades of TRIPS and three decades of openness, more than 400 delegates from over 50 countries converged...

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.

Is intellectual property (IP) gender neutral? No. Neither is the dominant discourse on innovation. Recognizing this bias is the first step toward remedying it.

By Philda Maiga A new dawn is upon Africa, following a decision on 5 December 2020 of the African Union Assembly to kickstart the trading...

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

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...

This is the first in a series of blog posts highlighting Open AIR’s latest working paper, A Framework for Assessing Technology Hubs in Africa, which will soon be published in the New York University Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. This is the first paper to offer a framework for systematically describing and assessing the emergence of high technology hubs throughout Africa.

The global South is full of significant, diverse biological and genetic resources. It’s also home to most of the world’s indigenous communities. This is why developing countries are sensitive about protecting their genetic resources and traditional knowledge.