Research

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.

The purpose of my visit was to seek the permission of the community members to conduct research in their community and to fix an appointment with the women. It was a short visit since I needed to introduce myself to the women and also brief them on the purpose of the visit.

Please note that this call for applications has now expired.  Applications are not being accepted at this time. Funding to conduct research on gender and...

By Sarah El Saeed The Egyptian Government has begun in pushing through a fiscal and monetary reform plan that includes various unpopular austerity measures. In...

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s specialist committee charged with negotiating text-based instrument(s) for the effective protection of Genetic Resources (GRs), Traditional Knowledge (TK), and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs), on Friday June 16 2017 concluded its 34th session with partial agreement on its mandate and on the fate of the committee and its work program.

ICT strategy development from start to finish, from design to implementation should cater to the different needs of the community whether it is societal, economic, business and political with an aim to realize universal access to optimize the impact in terms of scalability and sustainability.

By Chidi Oguamanam One of the major innovations of the IGC, in its long-running search for international legal instruments for the effective protection of TK/TCEs...

By Desmond Oriakhogba Gender issues are increasingly being discussed with regard to intellectual property (IP) and traditional knowledge (TK), especially from an African innovation perspective. Generally,...

By Michael P.K. Okyerefo* The pivotal place of feminine wisdom in Africa may surprise a good many outsiders! As one of my friends would always...

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...