Designed to help Canadian startups and scaleups bring their solutions to market, CENGN’s Living Lab Initiative provides real-world testing environments that ensure your innovative tech solution is reliable, scalable, and market-ready. CENGN’s nationwide ecosystem of Living Labs gives you access to the proper network infrastructure, sector-specific expertise, and purpose-built testing grounds – everything you need to validate your solution and confidently scale for market entry and commercial growth.
The CENGN Living Lab Initiative provides testing environments with sector-specific focuses, ensuring each facility has the proper infrastructure, expertise, and technologies for your project needs.
This targeted approach means you’ll work with experts who understand your solution’s unique challenges, access specialized equipment and support tailored to your technology, and test in environments that mirror real-world deployment conditions.
Powered By: Area X.O
Sector Focus: Mobility and Agriculture
The Smart Mobility and Smart Agriculture Living Lab is an 1,866-acre research complex in Ottawa, ON, purpose-built for validating smart agriculture and mobility solutions in real-world conditions. Powered by Area X.O, the facility combines cutting-edge network infrastructure with diverse testing environments to accelerate your innovation to success.
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Powered By: UBC Farm
Sector Focus: Agriculture
Located on UBC’s Vancouver campus, the Smart Farming Living Lab offers 5 hectares of small-scale organic farm plots where your agriculture tech solution meets real-world validation. This unique testing facility bridges cutting-edge agricultural research with practical farming operations.
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Powered By: University of Waterloo’s RoboHub and Rogers Communications
Sector Focus: Robotics
The Connected Robotics Living Lab is Canada’s most advanced robotics research, testing, and training facility located at the University of Waterloo’s RoboHub. The state-of-the-art laboratory simulates complex, real-world environments to help you confidently evaluate and deploy your robotics solution.
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Powered By: Ericsson
Sector Focus: 5G Technology
Located in Ottawa, the 5G Advanced Performance Living Lab gives you access to 5G spectrum and configurations not yet commercially available in Canada. Test your solutions on experimental spectrum allocations and advanced Ericsson network setups.
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Get immediate access to enterprise-grade testing infrastructure and expertise to ensure your solution works as expected.
CENGN Validation Services provide a comprehensive testbed for load testing, stress testing, scalability validation,
security performance analysis, and more, all backed by CENGN experts who help you identify bottlenecks and optimize your solution’s performance.
Why CENGN’s Approach Works
Transform your solution and ensure it’s ready for market and scaling with the testing infrastructure and expertise you need.
Learn More About CENGN's Validation Services
AI Product Development & UX/UI
AI Model Development & Engineering
AI Data Preparation
Prepare your innovation for market success with our comprehensive end-to-end list of AI and technology services, designed to support your innovation’s journey from concept to deployment.
Backed by Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) Canada’s $45 million investment, Canadian startups and scaleups, and CENGN Living Lab projects receive non-diluted funding support.
Ensure market readiness and scalability. Test your solution for bottlenecks or performance issues in preparation for your market goals or get third-party evidence of your solution’s performance to impress potential customers, investors, or other stakeholders.
Funding: Up to $250,000 in project support.
Have a prospect that’s interested in your solution? Work with a potential customer to validate your solution against their specific requirements in a Living Lab environment.
Funding: Up to $500,000 in project support.
Submit Your Project Proposal for Funding and Living Lab Access
Enhance your living lab experience with student support that matches your project needs.
Tailored Matching
Get students with the right expertise for your living lab project. CENGN handles the selection process to align your project needs with the students’ background and expertise.
Access to Top University Programs
With numerous academic partnerships from top STEM and business programs in Canada, CENGN gets you access to students with specialized skills aligned to your project’s technical needs.
Funding Opportunities
Get up to 40%-50% of internship costs covered through Mitacs funding and additional savings through provincial tax credits and subsidies.
Streamlined Administration
CENGN directs you to suitable funding agencies that can subsidize your internship costs and part-time options.
Learn More about Living Lab Internships
Currently supported by the Canadian Government’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN) helps startups and scaleups bring their solutions to market. CENGN provides the resources and technical expertise to test and validate their 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.
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].
