Research

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...

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.

By Esther Adekunbi Gender equality is a very important issue in today’s world, while also a fraught debate. Gender equality can be achieved when men and women...

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.

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 :...

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.

Over the past few years, Kenya’s innovation scene has come to the limelight, resulting in some naming the country as the technology hub of Africa. Some of the factors that have led to this acclaim are the growing number of shared working spaces, young technology enthusiasts, incubators where developers are mentored and trained, and a craze for mobile application development. The Open AIR team in Kenya – comprised of Dr. Isaac Rutenberg, Victor Nzomo, Louisa Matu-Mureithi and myself – is conducting research on mobile innovation in Kenya. As a researcher on the team, I am helping to conduct research, interviews, and analysis on the case study entitled “Open Collaborative Models of Mobile Tech Innovation in Kenya.”

Makerspaces are places where people gather to build projects, learn new technologies, and develop entrepreneurial opportunities. Open AIR is conducting research on makerspaces across the African continent.

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.

Authored by: Chidi Oguamanam Abstract: The Nigerian movie industry, known as Nollywood, has attracted an impressive degree of research interest since its debut in the 1990s,...