Blog Post

By Desmond Oriakhogba As an Open AIR NERG and QEScholar, I have been conducting research since June 2018 on the empowerment of indigenous craft women...

In the recently concluded ‘African Ministerial Conference: Intellectual Property for an Emerging Africa’ organized in part by WIPO (here), one cannot help but think that all roads leading to creativity and innovation are paved with intellectual property (IP) laws and institutions. Put differently, the level of creativity and innovation in a society is dependent solely on how we tinker with and enforce IP laws. This ‘IP parochialism’, as I call it, is manifest in the conference program. Of course, the response would be that the conference was solely about IP and as such there was no need to look beyond IP. This is an erroneous view.

By: Nagla Rizk AI and Gender in Africa The original version of this essay was written as a section in a paper titled “Integrating Africa...

By Angela Yeboah-Appiah Women in Ghana face diverse forms of discrimination and are not equally treated as men both in the public and private sphere....

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 Sileshi Hirko Putting Africa at the Forefront in Digital Economies Central to the flourishing digital economies, the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the...

In 2012, a civil society group called the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), raised concerns about a draft Africa Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) plant variety protection protocol. AFSA was concerned,

Over the past few years, Kenya’s innovation scene has come to the limelight, resulting in some naming the country as the technology hub of Africa. Some of the factors that have led to this acclaim are the growing number of shared working spaces, young technology enthusiasts, incubators where developers are mentored and trained, and a craze for mobile application development. The Open AIR team in Kenya – comprised of Dr. Isaac Rutenberg, Victor Nzomo, Louisa Matu-Mureithi and myself – is conducting research on mobile innovation in Kenya. As a researcher on the team, I am helping to conduct research, interviews, and analysis on the case study entitled “Open Collaborative Models of Mobile Tech Innovation in Kenya.”

By Charlene Musiza The marketing of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) – which are manifestations of traditional culture such as handicrafts, sculptures and performances – presents...

Par Aboubacry Kane Aujourd’hui, les femmes entrepreneures sont de plus en plus présentes sur la scène économique au Sénégal. Bien qu’elles s’engagent dans des activités entrepreneuriales, souvent de petite taille,...