Blog Post

By Philda Maiga Trade is considered an important engine for growth. Studies have shown that trade can dramatically improve women’s lives, create jobs, and increase...

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...

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.

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 three in a three part series. For part one, click here. For part two, click here. Monumental advances in technology are...

By Jeremy de Beer and Yvonne Ndelle The recent conference hosted by the Canada Africa Parliamentary Association (CAAF) served as a pivotal platform for discussing...

By Esther Mobolayo Adekunbi On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, I was privileged to attend a meeting organised by CARE Canada and the Food and Agriculture...

By Esther Ekong Africa is making her way fearlessly into the global center stage as new models of innovation, aiming to not only address the needs of...

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...

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.