The Creative Commons Global Summit 2019 edition was held from the 9th to the 11th of May 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal.

The summit ran for 3 days with 6 tracks, 120 sessions and more than 100+ countries represented.

The meeting was attended by community members from Africa,  and who are advocates for openness, such as  communities from Creative Commons Africa Chapters, WikiAfrica and Open Knowledge Foundation.  

The Creative Commons Global Summit meetings brings together hundreds of leading activists, advocates, librarians, educators, lawyers, technologists, and more for discussion and debate, workshops and planning, talks and community building.

There was an increased participation by the global south and the summit was co-hosted by CC and CC Portugal (after two successful years in Toronto, Canada).

The following were the track themes

• Creators of the Commons (artists, makers, creators)
• Building the Commons (tools, tech, community that makes the commons run)
• Ethics of Openness (diversity, equity, inclusion, gender, de-colonisation and the role of the commons)
• Open Education, Open Science and Open Access
• Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums
• Legal, Policy and Copyright Reform.

CC Global Summit 2019 highlights

As noted above the summit had good participation from the global south, hereunder l review some of the presentations from African and Asia.

Opening Africa Session

This session was chaired by CC Algeria and highlighted various achievements, current projects and future projections and included the challenges of open advocacy experienced in the region. The issues discussed for Algeria include (amongst many others):-

• Promoting the culture of sharing and openness
• Promoting the use of the freedom CC licences
• Increasing the visibility of Algerian research publications

More information here 

The State of Open Africa: Are We Doing Enough?

This was another interesting session as it pondered on the status of Open Africa viz-a-viz the demand for increased participation of African countries.

The session brainstormed on the challenges faced by Africa in being open – such as infrastructure, connectivity, social media tax, and lack of awareness and political will. The issue of Wikimedia country affiliates was discussed and how to include more countries. The participants emphasized the need for awareness raising and advocacy.

More information here

A radical practice of sharing?: Working towards knowledge equity in African-heritage communities in London

This was a panel discussion that focused how open licensed and open sourced technologies can democratise resources and knowledge with African objects acquired during colonisation.

This issue of ‘stolen African’ art has been in the media recently. The session discussed how the presenters’ projects have been reusing and rethinking objects, from the continent and the Diaspora, held in British museums and archives.

More information here

Open access to Knowledge from French Speaking Africa: progress and discussion of strategies using existing networks

Abstract: Western modernity has invented, at the same time as capitalism and colonization, a certain type of knowledge that it has decreed to be the only valid: the so-called "scientific" knowledge. It’s acceptance has led to a cognitive injustice between the North and the global Souths with knowledge mainly moving in the direction North – South. Open Access can be part of a solution but only if it gives also access to the knowledge of the countries in the Global Souths. In a Roundtable discussion we want to explore ways to bring about wanted change in the Global Souths.

Open educational resources and way forward for academics in developing countries

Abstract: Tertiary institutions are great in the generation of information that can be shared. In developing nations the competition for novelty and privileges hinder the share of information by academics.

Tertiary institutions in developing nations use Open Educational Resources (OER) for teaching but have difficulty creating localized versions of the resources. This session discussed and then proposed solutions to the creation of OERs and use of open licenses in developing nations.

Creating Big Open in Bangladesh: Stereotypes, Commitments and Actions 

Abstract: Education at tertiary level in Bangladesh is highly expensive in general whenever the students go for using copyrighted study resources. Spending on copyrighted study resources limits the access to study resources and makes the use of pubic fund inefficient.

The proposal highlights the Scope for creating and adopting OER (under CC Licenses) in secondary and higher education programs in Bangladesh, The role of open policies in promoting the open culture in Bangladesh, The commitments and actions for strengthening open movement in Bangladesh.

Why not browse the full CC Global Summit 2019 programme. In some sessions you can access the link to the full notes of the session.