Open AIR’s Sileshi Hirko wins competitive grant
Mr. Sileshi Hirko, a PhD candidate in the Common Law Section of the University of Ottawa, has won the Civil Society Scholars Award (CSSA)....
Les Fablabs en Afrique : une utopie à l’épreuve des...
By Thomas Hervé Mboa Nkoudou
Du 6 au 10 mai 2018, la ville de Dakar accueillait le Festival Afropixel 6 sur la thématique « Utopies non-alignées :...
Expedited COVID-19 R&D: Indigenous Knowledge and ABS Imperative
With the world on edge as the COVID-19 crisis progresses, the scientific community has sprung into gear in search of an effective treatment. Research and Development (R&D) is progressing at unprecedented speeds. Amidst this rapid development, traditional knowledge plays a significant role in scientific endeavours. Through traditional knowledge, medical researchers can gain guidance and inspiration and bypass prolonged and expensive scatter-gun approaches to R&D.
Power Relations, Innovation, Scaling, and Knowledge Governance at Three Egyptian Tech...
Authored by: Nagham ElHoussamy, Nadine Weheba, and Nagla Rizk
Abstract: This Working Paper offers an initial exploration of innovation realities at technology hubs in...
Better metrics, better policies for knowledge and innovation in Africa
By Nagla Rizk
The Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D) leads the research on metrics, laws and policies within the Open African Innovation Research network...
How Women’s Economic Empowerment Is Tackling Poverty in Southwest Nigeria
By Esther Adekunbi Mobolayo
I started my QES in January 2020 but, within months, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. At first, it appeared as if...
Three Centuries and Counting: The Emergence and Development of Intellectual Property...
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.
Gender, IP, and Innovation: Open AIR’s Future Research
The Open AIR network seeks to bring, among other things, a gendered perspective to our research. We are exploring the nexus between feminist literature, intellectual property, information technology, and innovation; connecting these approaches into the network’s future priorities.
ICTs in Agricultural Production and Potential Deployment in Operationalising Geographical Indications...
Authored by: Tesh W. Dagne and Chidi Oguamanam
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore the role that agricultural information and communication technologies...
Dr. Kakooza “Dealing with Trans-Border Quasi-Intellectual Property”
In October 2010, Yoweri Museveni, the President of Uganda, recorded a rap song titled: "Do You Want Another Rap?" as part of his re-election campaign to capture the imagination of young voters. The song was a huge success and may have played a part in his reelection. When Museveni applied for a copyright registration of the song, however, members of the Ankole community filed an objection stating that the song was derived from Ankole folklore. While the Registrar of Copyrights in Uganda eventually allowed Museveni's copyright application for registration, this case triggered Dr. Anthony Conrad K. Kakooza's interest in the area of traditional cultural expressions (TCEs) and whether TCEs should be recognized within the domain of intellectual property (IP) law.













