Research

The sharing economy has been growing at an ever-accelerating pace throughout the world as peer-to-peer networks and collaborative company models continue to pop up. The sharing economy, according to Rachel Botsman, is “an economic model based on sharing underutilized assets, from spaces to skills to stuff, for monetary or non-monetary benefits.” They often involve platforms that enable the exchange of services between peers or businesses. Arun Sundarajan explains the sharing economy somewhat differently: “What is new, in the “sharing economy,” is that you are not helping a friend for free; you are providing these services to a stranger for money.” He describes this as “crowd-based capitalism.”

By Philda Maiga Trade is considered an important engine for growth. Studies have shown that trade can dramatically improve women’s lives, create jobs, and increase...

By Charlene Tsitsi Musiza There have been many efforts to empower women, but rural women continue to face unique socio-economic challenges. A suggested approach to...

Authored by: Nagham ElHoussamy, Nadine Weheba, and Nagla Rizk Abstract: This Working Paper offers an initial exploration of innovation realities at technology hubs in...

By Desmond Osaretin Oriakhogba My Engagement with the Hillcrest Aids Centre Trust in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa As part of my on-going project as a Queen...

By Chris Armstrong The African European Maker Innovation Ecosystem (mAkE) Project, of which Open AIR is part, has launched its Open Catalogue of Business Models (OCBM)....

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: 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.

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.

Agricultural data is globally recognized for its importance in addressing food insecurity. We propose a ‘data commons’, formed through a licensing model that allows farmers to benefit from the datasets to which they contribute.