Informal Innovation

The “Makers” who come together to tinker and hack in the maker collectives of South Africa’s Gauteng Province display a wide range of innovation practices, our research for Open AIR has found. Our study, Collaboration and Appropriation in Gauteng Makerspaces, investigated the activities of eight Gauteng maker collectives. The findings have now been published in Open AIR Working Paper 6, entitled The Maker Movement in Gauteng Province, South Africa.

This paper sets out findings from a national scan of maker collectives in South Africa. The scan gathered data on more than 20 maker communities across five South African provinces.

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...

Funded by the Open AIR network, my case study is about skills development and innovation at Ghana’s Suame Magazine Industrial Cluster. The research I am conducting seeks to understand the processes and systems that contribute to how knowledge is or is not shared and how skills are acquired in one of West Africa’s largest informal sector industrial clusters, Suame Magazine. How skills are learned and what is communicated between those in the industrial cluster will help us to learn how innovations are shared and taught among these informal businesses.

by Mohamed Hosny In the past few years, there have been several initiatives to help entrepreneurs introduce new creative and innovative products that break from...

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...

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...

Authored by: Desmond Osaretin Oriakhogba  Abstract : This case study explored the empowerment, innovation, entrepreneurship, and intellectual property (IP) dynamics at play in the work...

Par Ahou Rachel Koumi et Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou Ceci constitue la deuxième partie d’une série de trois. Pour la première partie, cliquez ici. La...

By Chris Armstrong  Open AIR was privileged to be a supporting partner of the inaugural AfricaOSH Summit, held 13-15 April 2018 at the Kumasi Hive...