Sectors

Why Living Labs?

Living labs serve as catalysts for Canada’s technology innovation and adoption by providing real-world testing environments where innovations can be validated and refined before widespread implementation. These collaborative ecosystems bring together government, industry, academia, and end-users to co-create solutions that address genuine market needs across various sectors while reducing deployment risks.

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Accelerating Canada’s Digital Future Through Real-World Innovation

In Canada, living labs are particularly valuable for accelerating digital transformation in key sectors such as agriculture, mobility, robotics, city infrastructure, and 5G adoption, where regulatory complexity and high stakes often slow adoption. By offering controlled yet authentic settings for experimentation, the CENGN Living Lab Initiative helps Canadian organizations overcome traditional barriers like risk aversion and cost constraints.

This initiative not only enables domestic companies to develop more market-ready solutions but also positions Canada as a global leader in responsible innovation, attracting international investment while ensuring technological advances translate into tangible benefits for Canadian communities.

Smart Agriculture

Canadian agriculture faces unique challenges from harsh climate conditions, vast distances, and diverse farming operations that make 5G, IoT, and AI technologies essential for the sector’s future success. Smart agriculture innovations are crucial for increasing productivity, enhancing climate resilience, improving resource management, and leveraging data-driven decision-making to support farming operations.

Without proper testing facilities, agricultural startups struggle to demonstrate clear benefits to potential adopters, creating significant barriers to technology adoption across the sector. Collaborative approaches that bring together tech innovators, end-users, and researchers are needed to provide hands-on validation opportunities, enabling Canada’s agricultural sector to enhance both productivity and sustainability through integrated smart technologies.

Learn More About the Smart Agriculture Living Lab

Smart Mobility

Canada’s transportation and mobility sector must tackle complex challenges that make connected and autonomous vehicle technologies, smart infrastructure, and mobility-as-a-service platforms increasingly essential for the sector’s evolution. These innovations are crucial for improving road safety, enhancing transportation efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, modernizing aging infrastructure, and leveraging real-time data and AI for better mobility planning across urban, rural, and worksite settings.

Without proper testing facilities, startups struggle to demonstrate real-world performance and safety benefits to potential adopters, creating significant barriers to technology deployment in the sector. Collaborative approaches, like CENGN Living Labs, that bring together innovators, infrastructure providers, and transportation authorities are needed to provide controlled validation opportunities, enabling Canada’s transportation sector to lead in next-generation mobility solutions through integrated smart technologies.

Learn More About the Smart Mobility Living Lab

Robotics

Canada’s traditional industries have mounting pressures that demand innovative robotic solutions, with agriculture dealing with labour shortages and precision farming needs, manufacturing requiring advanced automation for global competitiveness, and smart mobility needing logistics optimization and autonomous system integration. These sectors represent significant opportunities for robotics innovation, where autonomous systems can address critical operational challenges while enhancing productivity across these key economic areas.

Canadian innovators need accessible environments to validate their robotic solutions in authentic operational scenarios, allowing them to demonstrate capabilities to potential industry adopters who are hesitant to adopt unproven technologies. By facilitating hands-on validation, Canada’s traditional industries can enhance both operational efficiency and competitive advantage through strategic robotics integration, which is essential for maintaining the country’s position in the global marketplace.

Learn More About the Connected Robotics Living Lab

5G Advancement

Canada’s traditional sectors have been the backbone of the economy for generations but now require 5G support to keep Canada competitive globally while creating safer, more efficient operations.

5G networks address connectivity challenges facing Canada’s traditional sectors by delivering reliable communications for automation and data-driven operations. These capabilities position Canada’s sectors competitively in a global marketplace, where efficiency and technological integration drive success.

Learn More About the Advanced 5G Performance Living Lab

Smart Building

Canada’s environments face mounting pressures from climate change, energy efficiency demands, urbanization, and the need for safe and resilient infrastructure, making smart building technologies, IoT systems, and intelligent building management platforms essential for the sector’s transformation. These innovations are critical for optimizing energy consumption, improving occupant comfort and productivity, reducing operational costs, enhancing building security, and integrating renewable energy sources while leveraging real-time analytics for predictive maintenance across residential, commercial, and industrial properties.

Without access to testing environments, many tech startups and scaleups cannot validate their solutions under real-world conditions, creating substantial barriers to market adoption. Collaborative ecosystems, like CENGN Living Labs, that unite innovators, building owners, and system integrators are essential to provide comprehensive validation environments, enabling Canada’s smart building industry to advance technologies that support net-zero commitments and position Canadian companies as global leaders in Smart Infrastructure.

About CENGN

CENGN, Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks, helps startups and scaleups bring their solutions to market. CENGN provides the resources and technical expertise to test and validate innovative solutions while developing tech talent through its internship programs.

Since 2014, CENGN’s programs have created nearly 12,000 Canadian jobs, contributed $1.15 billion to Canada’s GDP, supported over 300 internships with a 97% employment rate, and completed over 230 commercialization projects to build Canada’s position and expertise in the global technology landscape.014, CENGN’s programs have created nearly 12,000 Canadian jobs, contributed $1.15 billion to Canada’s GDP, supported over 300 internships with a 97% employment rate, and completed over 230 commercialization.

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Contact

Do you have a question about the CENGN Living Lab Initiative?

With a passion for industry development, Lisa Klimstra is the Senior Manager of Business Development for CENGN. She’s responsible for leading all aspects of the Business Development function. She is an advocate for the CENGN Living Lab Initiative, which provides the services, expertise, and infrastructure required to test and validate network technology solutions.

For questions about partnership opportunities or program applications, please contact Lisa at at [email protected].

CENGN Living Lab Initiative

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