Blog Post

The purpose of my visit was to seek the permission of the community members to conduct research in their community and to fix an appointment with the women. It was a short visit since I needed to introduce myself to the women and also brief them on the purpose of the visit.

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...

First Stop, the American University in Cairo By the AUC New and Emerging Research Group and Meika Ellis Under the masterful guidance of our North African...

By Chris Armstrong As part of our Maker Movement research theme, we at Open AIR are trying to build understanding of how participation in...

Some people tour Europe’s finest vineyards others tour Australia’s sweetest surf spots—I tour South Africa’s pioneer makerspaces; part of the growing global maker movement. The movement is a culmination of people becoming “makers” (someone who uses their personal abilities to create anything from mechanical or electrical to visual or musical) and spaces becoming makerspaces (an interdisciplinary area stimulating people to create by providing resources and idea sharing).

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...

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...

By Wondwossen Belete Late last year, I attended four events concerning science, technology, and innovation in Africa. I was honored to be a speaker in three of...

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.

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...