This fall, two Open AIR New and Emerging Researchers Uchenna Ugwu and Sileshi Hirko successfully defended their PhD theses at the University of Ottawa. Food Security and IP in West Africa Uchenna Ugwu’s thesis on leveraging the multilateral patent regime to advance food security, states that social access, as well as economic and physical access, … Continue reading Open AIR NERGs successfully defend PhD theses→
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 first quarter of 2017, inflation hit a 30-year high of 31.5%, following several state subsidy cuts being made. The value of the Egypt pound has also declined by more … Continue reading Egypt’s New Investment Law: Creating Better Opportunities for Small Businesses?→
By Eslam Shaaban For decades, Kodak was a global giant in the photography industry all over the world. Over the past decade, however, their business gradually started to fall to where Kodak is now bankrupt. Why has Kodak failed and vanished? The answer to this is resistance to change. In a digital age that … Continue reading Financing of Innovation→
Mr. Sileshi Hirko, a PhD candidate in the Common Law Section of the University of Ottawa, has won the Civil Society Scholars Award (CSSA). CSSA is a research grant from the Open Society Foundations, and it is awarded to PhD students for field research and to scholars for a research project. With significant financial support … Continue reading Open AIR’s Sileshi Hirko wins competitive grant→
By Nagham El Houssamy The FORCE11 Scholarly Communications Institute was held at the University of California San Diego from 31 July until 4 August 2017. This was the first of what will become an annual one-week training and is open for anyone to register and attend. The course is especially useful for early-career researchers who … Continue reading The Many Faces of Scholarly Communications→
By Sara Yassine Over the past six months, the Research Laboratory Entrepreneurship and Management of Organizations (LABO-EMO) and Open AIR have been looking at ways to collaborate on research and activities. The LABO-EMO is a top-tier research unit at Hassan II University in Casablanca, Morocco, under the Faculty of Administration and Law. About the LABO-EMO … Continue reading Open AIR Expansion into Morocco→
By Sileshi Hirko Introduction The last week of May 2017 was a week of great academic activity in Canada, Congress 2017. This event is run by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, with Ryerson University hosting this year. Congress 2017 brought together over 70 associations under the theme “The Next 150: On Indigenous … Continue reading Canada’s 2017 Copyright Review: Reflections on the Congress 2017→
Funding to conduct research on gender and innovation in Africa is now available. Open AIR invites proposals for short-term research projects that address our research questions on African innovation through the lens of gender equality, empowerment of women and girls, and inclusion of marginalized communities. Researchers will conduct their projects while based at one or … Continue reading Apply Now: Funding for Research on Gender and Innovation in Africa→
By Uchenna Ugwu How can “user rights” and exceptions to copyright be used most effectively to ensure access to knowledge for all? This question is a very important one because access to knowledge is so integral to innovation. In May 2017, the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor convened the Copyright User Rights … Continue reading Open AIR NERG presents at Windsor Symposium on Copyright User Rights and Access to Justice→
In my previous blog on skills development and innovation at Ghana’s Suame Magazine, I showed how the high level of collaboration and sharing of knowledge and skills within the cluster is contributing to innovation. Further, I provided some preliminary findings on the inability of these artisans’ to keep pace with the changing technology landscape. I also found that few artisans expressed interest in joining or maintaining a membership with local trade associations due to these associations’ inability to implement their key mandate of skills development and facilitation of business for members and firms.
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.
There is often a limited and constricted view of African innovation, especially when it comes to refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). While there is the common perception that refugees on the continent are resilient, innovative, and resourceful, it is only in the sense that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. Too often, refugees and IDPs are perceived as persons with only needs. The reality is that refugees and IDPs are just like everyone else and bring many skills, ideas, and innovations to the global marketplace, both the marketplace of ideas and of goods.
