7 Ways that African States are Legitimizing Artificial Intelligence

By Jake Okechukwu Effoduh Several reports on States’ adoption of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) across the world have indicated that African countries have a “slow” or...

US Fails to Block Progress over Genetic Resources Text at WIPO-IGC...

Photo credit: Image by Ville Oksanen via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) By Chidi Oguamanam, cross-posted from ABS Canada. After six days of deliberations (June 24-29, 2018) to secure...

Open AIR Seeks Equitable Solutions to Post-pandemic Innovation Challenges

In 2013, Open AIR published foresight research anticipating a future shaped by shocks like a catastrophic global pandemic. During the decade since, Open AIR...

Open AIR Students Present at Carleton’s Institute of African Studies

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.

Dr. Kakooza “Dealing with Trans-Border Quasi-Intellectual Property”

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.

Launch of African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem (mAkE) Project

By Chris Armstrong Over the course of two days last week, 16-17 February, I and Open AIR colleague Nan Warner participated in the online "Kick-off...

Scaling Innovation: How Open Collaborative Models Help Scale Africa’s Knowledge-Based Enterprises

Drawing from more than 20 case studies of open, collaborative innovation in Africa, Open AIR has identified numerous dimensions of, and approaches to, enterprise-scaling. These case study findings are the core of Open AIR’s newest report, Scaling Innovation: How Open Collaborative Models Help Scale Africa s Knowledge-based Enterprises.

The Many Faces of Scholarly Communications

By Nagham El Houssamy The FORCE11 Scholarly Communications Institute was held at the University of California San Diego from 31 July until 4 August 2017....

Nouveau financement pour le réseau Open AIR

Open AIR ouvre la voie à une réglementation sur l’innovation plus équitable Le Centre de recherche pour le développement international (CRDI) a octroyé à Open AIR près...

OPEN AIR AND QES FELLOW EXPLORED THE IP, TK AND GENDER...

By Desmond Oriakhogba Gender issues are increasingly being discussed with regard to intellectual property (IP) and traditional knowledge (TK), especially from an African innovation perspective. Generally,...