Research

Par : Abdelhamid Benhmade Le Colloque de Yaoundé, 2019, est organisé par l’Université Catholique d’Afrique Centrale, en partenariat avec l’Institut Universitaire d’Abidjan et l’Université Toulouse Capitole....

Introduction In 2020, Ethiopia, a country that has faced a refugee crisis primarily because of long-term conflicts, experienced a deadly war that displaced many Ethiopians...

By Chris Armstrong The EU-funded African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem (mAkE) project has now completed its first year of operation. Open AIR is one of several...

By Uchenna Felicia Ugwu Africa is becoming recognized as an important hub of informal innovation, which should not be excluded or ignored by formal systems for IP...

By Chidi Oguamanam, cross-posted from ABS Canada. Pre-session Strategy Meetings Experts and delegates gathered in Geneva for the 40th session of the WIPO IGC, which commenced on...

Open AIR's Northern African hub, the Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) at the American University in Cairo, is conducting research on open...

Some people tour Europe’s finest vineyards others tour Australia’s sweetest surf spots—I tour South Africa’s pioneer makerspaces; part of the growing global maker movement. The movement is a culmination of people becoming “makers” (someone who uses their personal abilities to create anything from mechanical or electrical to visual or musical) and spaces becoming makerspaces (an interdisciplinary area stimulating people to create by providing resources and idea sharing).

ICT strategy development from start to finish, from design to implementation should cater to the different needs of the community whether it is societal, economic, business and political with an aim to realize universal access to optimize the impact in terms of scalability and sustainability.

The sharing economy has been growing at an ever-accelerating pace throughout the world as peer-to-peer networks and collaborative company models continue to pop up. The sharing economy, according to Rachel Botsman, is “an economic model based on sharing underutilized assets, from spaces to skills to stuff, for monetary or non-monetary benefits.” They often involve platforms that enable the exchange of services between peers or businesses. Arun Sundarajan explains the sharing economy somewhat differently: “What is new, in the “sharing economy,” is that you are not helping a friend for free; you are providing these services to a stranger for money.” He describes this as “crowd-based capitalism.”

Makerspaces are places where innovators gather together to develop new ideas, technologies and entrepreneurial opportunities. The concept of sharing not only space but also tools and equipment is gaining popularity in many countries. Canada is home to several makerspaces ranging from hackerspaces, to fab labs, to informal studio spaces where people can create, invent, and learn. Some are run for profit, some are non-profit, and some are run by individuals or larger institutions.