High Technology Hubs

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...

On 10 December 2016, as part of the RiseUp Summit in Cairo, Open AIR’s North Africa hub hosted their first Distinguished Speaker event with Ibrahim Al-Safadi, the CEO of Luminous Education. The Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) invited Al-Safadi to speak about the role of “makerspaces” to tackle unemployment and to share his experiences in how to create a makerspace that ensures that the individuals involved end up with jobs.

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 Mireille Yeo Wondia There have been significant global efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 – to ensure access to reliable, affordable and...

By Chris Armstrong As part of our Maker Movement research theme, we at Open AIR are trying to build understanding of how participation in...

This paper sets out findings from research into the dynamics of the emerging “maker” movement in South Africa’s Gauteng Province. The authors position the maker movement as a potentially strong contributor to, and manifestation of, informal-sector innovation on the African continent.

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).

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 Sileshi Hirko Putting Africa at the Forefront in Digital Economies Central to the flourishing digital economies, the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the...

By Nagham El Houssamy and Nadine Weheba This is part three in a three part series. For part one, click here. For part two, click here. Monumental advances in technology are...