Workshops

Workshop Training in Intellectual Property Value Capture (IPVC)

Since 2004, Light Years IP has conducted dozens of training courses and workshops across Africa reaching thousands of farmers, artisans and producers of distinctive products. The range of workshops covers coffee, tea, spices, shea butter, flowers, honey, vanilla, artistic works, cultural brands, and cashews, to name a few.

From 2009 to 2011, Light Years IP introduced IPVC to over 3,000 African IP owners through workshops in seven African countries, for a wide range of stakeholders representing millions of low-income farmers, producers, artisans, and owners of IP rights.


Workshop Locations Include:

  • Yaounde, Cameroon
  • Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
  • Nairobi, Kenya
  • Bamako, Mali
  • Maputo, Mozambique
  • Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
  • Arusha, Tanzania
  • Gulu, Uganda
  • Kampala, Uganda
  • Lusaka, Zambia
  • Stone Town, Zanzibar

During the Ethiopian Fine Coffee Initiative 2007-09, Light Years IP conducted many practical training sessions for coffee cooperative leaders and exporters and for government and embassy officials. Light Years IP training to the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office head, Getachew Mengiste, enabled Ethiopia to learn critical strategies in IP Value capture, specifically concerning licensing of their fine coffees. The combination of training and strategic interventions, headed by Light Years, enabled Ethiopian coffee farmers to receive $100 million more in export income.

Uganda stakeholders alone have had 8 training and consultative workshops and women producers in Northern Uganda have been introduced to IP Value Capture in workshops held under village trees. The training focuses on international retail and wholesale markets and highlights business strategies that appreciably increase the export income for such stakeholders.



IP Value Capture Training Expansion (2010 to present)

Most recently, Light Years IP has engaged in training in IP Value Capture with the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania, with shea butter artisans and producers in Uganda, and stakeholders in the spice industy of Tanzania and Zanzibar. These training workshops in Nairobi, Arusha, Gulu, and elsewhere have offered the principles of Intellectual Property and Trademarks and Certifications, as well as practical explorations of Western markets. Funded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, trainees have embarked on projects that are ongoing with follow-up workshops in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Zanzibar during 2010 and 2011.

Our new training program, funded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) expands our training in IP Value Capture. Our new training program includes the creation of training manuals specific to our stakeholder needs for IP Value Capture strategies. Our manuals have been translated into Swahili. Light Years engages a method of learning by doing, and our week-long workshops involve our participants in actual IP Value Capture projects to benefit their communities.

Light Years has developed a six-part methodology in IP Value capture involving business strategies taught in our IPVC workshop programs across Africa. Evaluation and feedback from trainees and stakeholders demonstrates a need for targeted IPVC training on a progressive level from IP Value Capture 101 (training toward farmers, producers and artisans) through IP Value Capture 202 to IP Value Capture 301 (for trainers).

Light Years is funded by Comic Relief and engaged in capacity building training with the Maasai of Tanzania and Kenya. These workshops in business management, supply chain analysis and intervention, have begun and will continue throughout 2012.