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.
Open AIR receives multimillion dollar SSHRC Grant
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.
Open AIR Welcomes South Africa’s Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation
The Open African Innovation Research (Open AIR) Network recently hosted officials from South Africa’s Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSTI) at the Centre...
Challenging Power Structures in the Context of Global Change
By Esther Ekong
As part of its Solutions for Gender Equality speaker series, The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), hosted a special panel...
Everywhere Still Invisible: Women and Their Traditional Knowledge
By Ghazaleh Jerban
I was so excited to be travelling to South Africa as an Open AIR NERG and QEScholar, in the middle of Canada’s notorious winter...
US Fails to Block Progress over Genetic Resources Text at WIPO-IGC...
Photo credit: Image by Ville Oksanen via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
By Chidi Oguamanam, cross-posted from ABS Canada.
After six days of deliberations (June 24-29, 2018) to secure...
L’Afrique à l’épreuve de la Covid-19
Par Abdelhamid Benhmade
En quatre semaines, la situation est devenue extrêmement alarmante sur le continent africain. « Les populations africaines vivent l’un des pires épisodes pandémiques...
Reconciling Copyright with Creativity: New Insights from 2018 Conferences (Part I)
By Helen Chuma-Okoro and Nicole Tumaine
Access to knowledge (A2K) is necessary to further innovation and creativity. Due to the exclusive nature of...
Open AIR Research into 4th Industrial Revolution Technologies and Artificial Intelligence:...
By Nagham El Houssamy and Nadine Weheba
This is part three in a three part series. For part one, click here. For part two, click here.
Monumental advances in technology are...
Inclusive Innovation: Lessons from Africa for the World’s ICT Policymakers
Information communication technologies (ICT) can play a crucial role in promoting development, making societies more just, equitable, and inclusive of marginalized communities. To see how, some of the brightest young researchers from the “global South” met with established field leaders at the IDRC and COSTECH-sponsored 2016 CPRsouth conference in Zanzibar.
