Scaling Innovation: How Open Collaborative Models Help Scale Africa’s Knowledge-Based Enterprises
Research Report by the Open African Innovation Research partnership (Open AIR)
This report draws on Open AIR research conducted since 2015 in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, and South Africa, finding that there are four scaling “archetypes” frequently present in African knowledge-based enterprises:
- scaling by expanding coverage;
- scaling by broadening activities;
- scaling by changing behaviour; and
- scaling by building sustainability.
The report then gives detailed accounts and research findings from our five years of case studies, through the lens of this four-component taxonomy. These case studies reflect the range of knowledge-based businesses that are already present across the continent, such as:
- footwear and textile enterprises operating in informal-sector clusters in Addis Ababa;
- a beadworking and craft collective in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa;
- vanilla-growers in Mukono District, Uganda;
- micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Botswana;
- fishers in South Africa’s Western Cape Province;
- maker communities, including FabLabs, in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya, and South Africa;
- Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry;
- Indigenous enterprises growing medicinal plants and practicing traditional healing in South Africa’s rural Bushbuckridge area; and
- startups and established enterprises operating in technology hubs in Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa.