Blog Post

Makerspaces are places where people gather to build projects, learn new technologies, and develop entrepreneurial opportunities. Open AIR is conducting research on makerspaces across the African continent.

In the first week of April 2016, the Open African Innovation Research and Training (Open AIR) network held a three-day workshop at our Nairobi hub, Strathmore University. The workshop included the Open AIR team and was primarily organized to bring together all the successful case study researchers in order to review, refine, and brainstorm about their upcoming research. There was also significant activity on Twitter, which can be read about here. All the case studies that Open AIR is funding fall under at least one of our major research themes: high technology hubs, informal sector innovation, indigenous entrepreneurship, and metrics and policies.

By Jeremy Baarbé (Picture: courtesy of Drawnalism) Open data has the potential to end global hunger. Farmers, government ministers, NGOs, and private firms gathered to collaborate...

By Desmond Oriakhogba and Chijioke Okorie Background There is no generally accepted definition of digital trade. However, there is increasing recognition of the fact that digital...

By Yaw Adu-Gyamfi Startups in Ghana struggle with access to technical support services, sustainable market linkages and funding to keep them afloat in the initial...

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...

Researchers from the Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) network have been awarded $2.5 million CAD through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Partnership Grants program...

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.

Open AIR has just released a video, on our @Afrinnovation YouTube channel, highlighting the network’s current large research programme, “Regulation for Innovation Supporting Sustainable...

Par : Abdelhamid Benhmade Le Colloque de Yaoundé, 2019, est organisé par l’Université Catholique d’Afrique Centrale, en partenariat avec l’Institut Universitaire d’Abidjan et l’Université Toulouse Capitole....