Maker spaces in developing countries: Sites of innovation despite simultaneous challenges
by Mohamed Hosny
In the past few years, there have been several initiatives to help entrepreneurs introduce new creative and innovative products that break from...
Commemorating 75 Years of the UDHR: Advancing Health Justice in a...
By Bertina Lou
On December 8, 2023, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was commemorated at the Advancing Health Justice...
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...
Ownership of Open Data (GODAN Summit 2016)
Open agricultural and nutritional data can play a vital role in addressing global challenges of food insecurity, health crises, climate change, and poverty.
El Houssamy Presents at Egypt Entrepreneurship Summit
The Summit was part of a series of events that took place in Egypt in conjunction with the Global Entrepreneurship Week. A2K4D’s Senior Research Officer, Nagham El Houssamy, participated in the summit, speaking on the Data-Driven Innovation Panel on Friday, November 18.
Is Creativity and Innovation All About Intellectual Property?
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.
Drawn Out Battle Over Genetic Resources Dampens Africa’s Hopes
The global South is full of significant, diverse biological and genetic resources. It’s also home to most of the world’s indigenous communities. This is why developing countries are sensitive about protecting their genetic resources and traditional knowledge.
Common Misconceptions of Patents in Egypt
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.
New Funding for the Open AIR Network
Open AIR leads the way on regulation for innovation in lower-income countries
Open AIR is pleased to announce that we have been granted nearly $2...
Open AIR Presents at Fourth Global Congress on IP and the...
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...
