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Maker Movement

Open AIR has been researching the innovation practices of African maker communities since 2016. We see the maker movement as a key engine for open collaborative innovation and enterprise development on the continent, and our exploration of the maker movement intersects with our work in the High Technology Hubs research theme. Open AIR’s first research engagements with African makers took place in 2016-17, when we documented The Maker Movement in Gauteng Province, South Africa and conducted A Scan of South Africa’s Maker Movement.

Our work in this area includes elements of knowledge co-production action research, through which we engage with maker communities not as mere research subjects, but also as collaborators who help guide the direction and content of the research findings. Emblematic of this action-research approach was Open AIR’s collaboration with the South African Maker Collective in convening the South African Maker Movement Workshop in Pretoria in March 2017. Our explorations of the continent’s maker communities then moved beyond South Africa to include studies of The Maker Movement Across North Africa and fabrication laboratories (fablabs) in Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Senegal.

Journal articles published by Open AIR researchers in this research area include Armstrong and Kraemer-Mbula’s 2022 article, Value Creation and Socioeconomic Inclusion in South African Maker Communities, and the 2018 article by Armstrong, de Beer, Kraemer-Mbula and Ellis entitled Institutionalisation and Informal Innovation in South African Maker Communities. From 2022 to 2025, Open AIR, through its University of Cape Town hub, was part of the consortium that delivered the EU Horizon 2020-funded African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem (mAkE) Project. The mAkE Project supported the work of makerspaces in several African and European countries, developed a Map of Machinery, and published an Open Catalogue of Business Models (OCBM), a set of Recommendations for Policy Makers, and a Venture Building Handbook.

Innovation by “makers” in South Africa’s Gauteng Province

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.

Makerspaces et émancipation des femmes en Afrique : Briser les préjugés...

Par Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou Au cours de mon séjour de recherche, je me suis intéressé à la place réservée aux femmes au sein...

Contributions des markers d’ici et d’ailleurs à la lutte contre la...

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...

“Making” Innovation Happen: Open AIR Hosts a Successful Workshop on the...

How the world evolves in the next decade (and beyond) may be dependent upon a new-age movement re-instilling age-old skills: the maker movement. In my ongoing research into the maker movement in Canada and South Africa (see earlier posts here and here), I recently co-hosted a workshop in Ottawa with attendees from the University of Ottawa, representatives of makerspaces in the community, and those with knowledge about makerspaces elsewhere in the world.

Makerspaces and Creativity

Looking back at Open AIR’s ‘Making’ Innovation Happen roundtable By Sean Boots In mid August, Open AIR hosted a roundtable discussion on makerspaces and innovation hubs in...

Policy Support for Makerspaces in Africa and Europe: mAkE Project Publishes...

By Chris Armstrong The EU Horizon 2020-funded African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem (mAkE) Project, in which Open AIR is an African partner, has published its flagship policy...

Collaboration Nord-Sud et présentation du processus de l’innovation au système de...

par Ahou Rachel KOUMI Ce blogpost est la première partie d’une série de deux blogs sur les Journées de l’Innovation en Contexte Académique réalisées du 19...

Innovation ouverte en contexte académique à Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Par Ahou Rachel KOUMI Ce blogpost est la deuxième partie d’une série de deux blogs sur les Journées de l’Innovation en Contexte Académique réalisées du 19...

The Maker Movement Across North Africa (Arabic)

نغم الحسامي ونجلاء رزق Authored by: Nagham El Houssamy and Dr. Nagla Rizk نسعى من خلال ورقة العمل هذه لتوضيح مخرجات...

Open AIR North Africa Distinguished Speaker Series: Ibrahim Al-Safadi on Makerspaces...

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.

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