Events

In October 2010, Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, recorded a rap song titled: "Do You Want Another Rap?" as part of his re-election campaign to capture the imagination of young voters. The song was a huge success and may have played a part in his reelection. When Museveni applied for a copyright registration of the song, however, members of the Ankole community filed an objection stating that the song was derived from Ankole folklore. While the Registrar of Copyrights in Uganda eventually allowed Museveni's copyright application for registration, this case triggered Dr. Anthony Conrad K. Kakooza's interest in the area of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) and whether TCEs should be recognized within the domain of intellectual property (IP) law.

By Nicole Tumaine Over the past four months, I have had the privilege of attending three international conferences as a panelist thanks to the generous...

Back in October 2016, three of our Open AIR Research Fellows had the unique and rewarding opportunity to participate in the Second Annual Institute of African Studies Undergraduate Research Conference at Carleton University’s Institute of African Studies. Undergraduate researchers from across the globe presented their research findings on a wide breadth of topics – from fiction describing Nigerian culture, to professional development for youth in South Africa, to political structures that influenced the welfare state in Tanzania and Kenya.

Looking back at Open AIR’s ‘Making’ Innovation Happen roundtable By Sean Boots In mid August, Open AIR hosted a roundtable discussion on makerspaces and innovation hubs in...

By Dana Elbashbishy On the 8th of February 2018, members of the Open African Innovation Research Partnership (Open AIR) gathered in Accra, Ghana to share research...

Open AIR’s North African hub, The Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at the American University in Cairo’s Onsi Sawiris School of Business,...

In the first week of April 2016, the Open African Innovation Research and Training (Open AIR) network held a three-day workshop at our Nairobi hub, Strathmore University. The workshop included the Open AIR team and was primarily organized to bring together all the successful case study researchers in order to review, refine, and brainstorm about their upcoming research. There was also significant activity on Twitter, which can be read about here. All the case studies that Open AIR is funding fall under at least one of our major research themes: high technology hubs, informal sector innovation, indigenous entrepreneurship, and metrics and policies.

Cross-posted from U of S Plant Phenotyping and Imaging Research Centre By Uchenna Ugwu  Can you tell me a bit about yourself? I am a PhD student...

By Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou Du 6 au 10 mai 2018, la ville de Dakar accueillait le Festival Afropixel 6 sur la thématique « Utopies non-alignées :...

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...