English:  : Public Resources Create Public Information | preferred copyright licenses

There is global awareness that where public resources are used to create knowledge the outputs should be considered public goods. This has been a part of the struggle for access to medicines and forms part of the law in some countries. How do we realise this objective in South Africa and Africa through changes in policy and practice and can it be assisted by copyright reforms or simply by using a more open copyright license? Chair: Douglas Ian Scott, Wikimedia South Africa

Prof. Vukosi Marivate, Chair Data Sciences, UP Jan-David Franke, Wikimedia Germany / WMDE Chijioke Okorie, Centre for Intellectual Property Law, UP

Pretoria Session 4.2: Public Resources Create Public Information | Open data and the importance of open copyright for structured data (databases) Data is becoming an ever more important resource for modern society. Despite this, researchers in South Africa experience difficulties in accessing data to further the public good..Many researchers in South Africa experience great difficulty accessing structured data, what do these difficulties look like and how can they be overcome? This session will try to answer these questions by looking at efforts to track the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. Chair: Douglas Ian Scott, Wikimedia South Africa Prof. Vukosi Marivate, Chair Data Sciences, University of Pretoria

More on the Right to Research in Africa Conference:

How can Africa predict and respond to the next pandemic? How do we model the impact of climate change on agriculture? How can we ensure access to accurate news and research in all African languages? Can we digitize our heritage to preserve it for future generations? Can we use AI to build a better future for Africa?

Answering these questions requires the very latest computational research methods. We need to mine information from research sources and databases all over the world. Do African researchers have access to the data they need? Does copyright law help or hinder the Right to Research?

Join policymakers, academics and activists from across the continent.

Including African researchers, legal experts, and intergovernmental organisations.