Research

Authored by: Caroline Ncube. This chapter provides an historical account of the development of IP on the African continent which highlights how the introduction of IP systems and their transposed legislation displaced existing knowledge governance systems and entrenched a primarily extractor-biased IP system.

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...

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...

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.

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 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...

By Eashan Karnik, cross-posted from Smart Prosperity Institute The need to adopt clean energy technologies is a pressing issue not just in Canada, but internationally...

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.

By Eslam Shaaban Innovators, especially in the start-up stage, are facing the problem of financing their projects. In Egypt, there is great potential to develop...

Authored by: Britta Rutert and Cath Traynor Abstract:  In this Working Paper, we present our findings in respect of the innovative and entrepreneurial behaviour...