Building Women’s Resilience and Leadership in Climate Change and Humanitarian Crises
By Esther Mobolayo Adekunbi
On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, I was privileged to attend a meeting organised by CARE Canada and the Food and Agriculture...
Building Startup Resilience in Ghana Through Policy Support
By Yaw Adu-Gyamfi
Startups in Ghana struggle with access to technical support services, sustainable market linkages and funding to keep them afloat in the initial...
Access to COVID-19 Vaccines: the Patent Freeze Proposal and a New...
By Chidi Oguamanam and Sarah O’Flaherty
The State of Affairs
As the vaccination rate rises in Canada and other developed nations, developing countries globally continue to record an...
African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem (mAkE) Project Completes Year 1
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...
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...
MSMEs and Open Collaborative Innovation in Botswana
Authored by: Njoku Ola Ama and Francis Nathan Okurut
Abstract: This study explores the adoption, by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Botswana, of...
Upcoming research into informal entrepreneurs
Our Open AIR researcher Dr. Erika Kraemer-Mbula is continuing her exciting research in South Africa about informal sector entrepreneurs.
Informal entrepreneurship is receiving increasing scholarly and political attention in Africa. The continent’s booming youth population calls for an unprecedented need to create income and livelihood opportunities. Besides the traditional focus on formalisation, there is a growing interest in understanding the creative processes and innovations occurring in informal enterprises. However, evidence remains scarce, and research on informal enterprises still represents a relatively new and unexplored frontier.
Trickles and Spouts: Translating Research on Intellectual Properties to Women’s Entrepreneurship
By Esther Ekong
I am currently conducting my PhD research about Nigerian women entrepreneurs in ongoing global debates about the role of intellectual property (IP)...
Open AIR NERG presents at Windsor Symposium on Copyright User Rights...
By Uchenna Ugwu
How can “user rights” and exceptions to copyright be used most effectively to ensure access to knowledge for all? This question is...
Firm-Level Innovation in Africa: Overcoming Limits and Constraints
Edited by: Oluseye Jegede: The literature on innovation in Africa is rapidly expanding, and a recurring thread in the emergent literature is the pervasiveness of systemic weaknesses that inhibit the innovation process. Despite these, firms are able to innovate in Africa.













