Blog Post

Par Ahou Rachel Koumi Ceci constitue la troisième partie d’une série de trois. Pour la première partie, cliquez ici. La violence et la rapide propagation de...

By Mnena Abuku Women in Africa have faced a diversity of struggles in their efforts toward sustainable development. This is largely because globalisation has brought more burdens upon...

By Ghati Nyehita My ongoing Open AIR, Queen Elizabeth Scholar - Advanced Scholars (QES-AS), research project discusses the extent which South Africa’s copyright and design laws...

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.

How the world evolves in the next decade (and beyond) may be dependent upon a new-age movement re-instilling age-old skills: the maker movement. In my ongoing research into the maker movement in Canada and South Africa (see earlier posts here and here), I recently co-hosted a workshop in Ottawa with attendees from the University of Ottawa, representatives of makerspaces in the community, and those with knowledge about makerspaces elsewhere in the world.

By Esther Adekunbi Mobolayo I started my QES in January 2020 but, within months, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. At first, it appeared as if...

By Erika Kraemer-Mbula The 2018 Annual Economic Summit, was organised by the Global Economic Institute in partnership with the Government of the Canary Islands. It...

The “Makers” who come together to tinker and hack in the maker collectives of South Africa’s Gauteng Province display a wide range of innovation practices, our research for Open AIR has found. Our study, Collaboration and Appropriation in Gauteng Makerspaces, investigated the activities of eight Gauteng maker collectives. The findings have now been published in Open AIR Working Paper 6, entitled The Maker Movement in Gauteng Province, South Africa.

Par Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou Je suis Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou, doctorant en Communication Publique à l’Université Laval (Québec, Canada). Je m’intéresse à la contribution des tiers-lieux de...

Last month, Open AIR launched our inaugural case study workshop at the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology (CIPIT), part of Strathmore University’s Law School in Kenya, and one of Open AIR’s hubs. The workshop sought to provide successful case study participants with an opportunity to present their proposals and brainstorm with their colleagues.