Research

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...

Par Aboubacry Kane Le secteur informel ignoré par le plan de relance économique La pandémie du Covid-19 continue toujours de sévir dans le monde. Après plusieurs...

In 2013, Open AIR published foresight research anticipating a future shaped by shocks like a catastrophic global pandemic. During the decade since, Open AIR...

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.

This paper maps the 130-year history of the IP treaty landscape governing the protection of, and access to, knowledge in Africa.

By Lilian Nantume* The education and dissemination of knowledge about Intellectual Property Rights for small women-owned businesses in Uganda is still in its infancy. Unfortunately,...

Par Abdelhamid Benhmade En quatre semaines, la situation est devenue extrêmement alarmante sur le continent africain. « Les populations africaines vivent l’un des pires épisodes pandémiques...

By Eslam Shaaban In March 2018, the African Continent Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA) was unveiled as the world’s largest free trade area since the creation...

C’est dans un contexte réglementaire favorable à l’innovation qu’on peut trouver les solutions aux problèmes sociaux les plus pressants. Mentionnons à titre d’exemples la...