Blog Post

When SSHRC and IDRC awarded sizeable, prestigious grants to support Open AIR in its third phase of research, the Network’s leadership promptly organized a face-to-face meeting at its North African Hub, the American University of Cairo. While a great strength of Open AIR is its ability to coordinate its research and administrative tasks remotely across its various hubs, personal meetings are invaluable when the Network needs to deal with specific overarching strategic issues.

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...

Par Abdelhamid Benhmade En collaboration avec le Centre de recherche en droit, technologie et société (CDTS), DST/NRF/ Newton Fund Trilateral Research Chair in Transformative Innovation, et,...

Par Abdelhamid Benhmade En réponse à l’invitation de Cités et Gouvernements Locaux Unis d’Afrique (CGLU Afrique), j’ai eu la possibilité d’assister à la 8èmeédition du...

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 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...

By Pamela Mreji Since the beginning of time, women and men inventors and entrepreneurs have transformed our world through the power of their imagination and...

By Chris Armstrong Over the course of two days last week, 16-17 February, I and Open AIR colleague Nan Warner participated in the online "Kick-off...

Par Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou La difficulté d’accès à l’équipement est souvent pointée comme l’un des principaux problèmes dont souffrent les makerspaces en Afrique. Et...

Our Open AIR researcher Dr. Erika Kraemer-Mbula is continuing her exciting research in South Africa about informal sector entrepreneurs. Informal entrepreneurship is receiving increasing scholarly and political attention in Africa. The continent’s booming youth population calls for an unprecedented need to create income and livelihood opportunities. Besides the traditional focus on formalisation, there is a growing interest in understanding the creative processes and innovations occurring in informal enterprises. However, evidence remains scarce, and research on informal enterprises still represents a relatively new and unexplored frontier.