In Africa, Intellectual Property as a standalone concept sometimes seems to be not effective catalyst of innovation and creativity. It is the same cause that African Institute of Intellectual Property, Innovation and Technology Transfer was created in order to reimagine and match the African innovation ecosystem. In fact, AIIPITT was created just to bring solutions that reflect on the challenges that African nations are facing including intellectual property education and awareness among creators, research protection and commercialization of public funded technology projects especially in Universities and research organization.
Generally, African countries are performing very well in economic growth in different rankings where countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana keep coming among the best performers but also the startups and SMEs on this continent need to be facilitated to benefit from their innovative works. The most crucial factor is that these startups mostly are established and run by young entrepreneurs which is positive since youth unemployment is a major concern for all African countries.
It is the same way, Universities and research organisations also need direct technical support that would help them in areas of intellectual property awareness amongst researchers, intellectual property documentation, patent drafting and filling, technology valuation and commercialization of innovations.