By Scott Simmie

Some very exciting news for nine Canadian technology SMEs was announced last week – and InDro Robotics is one of them. CENGN, Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks, revealed the first cohort of its Living Lab Initiative. All nine of these cohorts will share in funding totalling $6.5M, which includes $2.6M from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada’s (ISED) Strategic Response Fund (SRF). They will also have access to “Living Labs” – real-world cross-sector environments for testing and hardening innovations on the road to commercialisation.

InDro’s project – which we’ll get to shortly – will take place at Area X.O, which is powering the Smart Mobility and Smart Agriculture Living Lab, one of several Living Labs that play a critical role in this initiative. In fact, immense credit is due to Susanne Cork, Business Development Director, Smart Farm and Advanced Robotics with Area X.O and Invest Ottawa. Prior to CENGN even making a call for proposals, Susanne had the idea of bringing InDro together with an AI-focused partner on the agricultural side of things – envisioning that such as project could both be synergic and help highlight some of the many opportunities Area X.O offers as a high-tech development centre and real-world proving ground.

This is the first cohort in an ambitious, long-term project. CENGN plans to eventually assist 100 Canadian tech startups and scaleups via this initiative, which includes Living Labs in the areas of Smart Agriculture, Smart Mobility, Connected Robotics and 5G (with more to come with future cohorts).

The initiative has multiple goals, including:

• Acceleration of Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) for innovations made by Canadian companies
• Boosting GDP growth via new technologies, IP, sales and jobs for skilled workers
• Sales growth and follow-on investments for domestic technology firms

“By offering access to advanced infrastructure, expert support, and real-world testing environments, the CENGN Living Lab Initiative drives technology adoption across key economic sectors. It plays a critical role in boosting Canadian industry competitiveness, fostering new Intellectual Property, and fueling the growth of the country’s most promising technology ventures,” states its news release announcing the cohort.

Above: Head of R&D Sales, Luke Corbeth, demonstrates an InDro-enhanced humanoid at GCXpo in September of 2025. Below: Detail of humanoid, which features the InDro Backpack, enabling remote teleoperation, autonomous missions, and the quick integration of additional sensors. The Backpack contains the InDro Cortex brainbox

INDRO’S PLANS

InDro Robotics specialises in innovative solutions that include custom UGVs, UAVs, autonomy software stacks – and much more. Over the past few years, we’ve also been working hard in the quadruped and humanoid space. We’ve gained a solid reputation by vastly enhancing the capabilities of existing platforms, often by integrating our proprietary InDro Cortex brainbox and our InDro Controller interface for mission planning, monitoring and data acquisition.

When CENGN issued its call for proposals, we suggested the Living Labs Initiative would be the perfect opportunity – and Area X.O the perfect locations – to test and further develop a humanoid for a specific agricultural task (we can’t reveal too many details yet). CENGN and Area X.O shared our vision of its possibilities.

“Partnering with CENGN enables InDro Robotics to validate our dexterous humanoid solution in a real-world agricultural environment, advancing our systems with a clear path toward commercial deployment,” says Philip Reece, Founder and CEO of InDro Robotics.

“Access to CENGN’s Living Labs, including high-performance 5G connectivity, allows us to test our teleoperation, autonomy, and data streaming under realistic conditions alongside our end user, significantly reducing technical risk and accelerating time to market.”

THE COHORT

Eight other Canadian technology companies are in this first cohort, and we’re proud to be in their company. They represent a broad cross-section of the tech sector, and we’d like to highlight and congratulate each and every one of them:

EcoSystem informatics Inc. specialises in AI-driven air quality monitoring for cities and municipalities, industrial clients, NGOs and more. “Carrying out a CENGN project will enable our organization to validate and scale real-time environmental intelligence within connected mobility infrastructure, including electric vehicles,” says company CEO/CTO Shirook Ali.

Strategic weed management firm GECO uses satellite imagery and AI to generate multi-seasonal weed maps. That data can then be used for precision agriculture – whether it’s for the pinpoint application of herbicide or strategic seeding. “Our CENGN project will enable Geco to significantly advance our weed detection capabilities by working with a network of researchers and commercial farms across Canada and internationally,” says Founder and CEO Greg Stewart (PhD).

GEOMATE helps advance Smart Mobility by utilising AI to transform geospatial imagery of cities into high-resolution maps and simulation environments for urban planners and the autonomous mobility sector. “Carrying out the CENGN project will accelerate industry adoption of GeoMate’s flagship product, RealSimE. The platform empowers cities for CAV readiness and enables scalable AD/ADAS testing and validation across new geographies,” says company Co-Founder and CEO Amin Gharebaghi.

Ever wonder how many people actually look at billboards, ads on benches, or any other branded media intended for consumers? Mobilytics uses sensors and proprietary software to capture accurate data, indoors or outdoors, on everything from digital screens to buses to shopping carts. “As our team moves into a global rollout phase, this project will verify our infrastructure can support hundreds of thousands of sensor deployments worldwide,” says Casey Binkley, Founder & CEO.

Below: The eight other cohort members, via the CENGN news release

WAIT, THERE’S MORE

Real Life Robotics is a robotics and automation company focussing on how companies – even cities – manage their robots and connected devices. Its flagship software product, PASSENGER, is a “hardware-agnostic orchestration platform that unifies fleets of robots, IoT systems, and automation technologies” into a single and simple dashboard. “Carrying out a CENGN project will allow our organization to accelerate the integration and testing of our PASSENGER platform within a world-class robotics environment,” says CEO Cameron Waite.

Solana Networks specialises in data network analysis. Specifically, it can provide deep insights into and analytics about high-volume network traffic with multiple proprietary software solutions. “Working with CENGN accelerates Solana Networks’ ability to validate the scalability and performance of TrafficWiz in carrier-grade 5G and wireline networks. TrafficWiz provides encrypted traffic visibility and supports AI-driven threat and anomaly detection at scale, giving stakeholders actionable insight into modern network traffic and infrastructure without requiring decryption,” says Nisan Rowhani, VP of Product Management.

Using AI-guided UAVs and proprietary “Seedpods,” TreeTrack Intelligence has bold plans to plant 100 million trees by 2028. Its solution is up to 10 times more successful than traditional tree-planting techniques, with a fraction of the carbon footprint. “Carrying out a CENGN project will enable TreeTrack to validate and scale an AI-powered UAV monitoring platform that automates seedling survival verification across entire reforestation sites,” says company CEO Amir Soliemani.

WeTraq offers multiple hardware and software solutions – including wearable devices – to monitor worker safety, seniors or those requiring care, and much more (it can even detect and alert users to an open parking space). “Carrying out a CENGN project will enable WeTraq to accelerate deployment of its patient mobility monitoring solution with hospitals, improving patient safety and supporting independence while giving care teams objective, real-time mobility insights,” says Founder/CEO Ishaan Singla.

Quotes above are credited to the CENGN news release.

AREA X.O

As core tenant of Area X.O since it began, InDro couldn’t be in a better location for this project.

Spanning more than 1,800 acres, the site integrates diverse, real-world environments to support advanced testing and validation. Within the Innovation Farm, dedicated agricultural infrastructure includes small-plot research areas and mid-sized production fields designed to support both biological and technology-driven innovations, including autonomous systems and AI-enabled solutions.

Complementing this, the Smart Mobility Living Lab features four purpose-built test zones that replicate live urban and suburban roadway conditions, complete with traffic signals, railway crossings, and a wide array of sensors, cameras, and IoT devices. All of this is enabled by Area X.O’s advanced communications backbone, providing a secure, connected environment for rigorous development, demonstration, and evaluation of next-generation technologies.

Below: Our recent Sound Byte micro-podcast on Area X.O, followed by an image of InDro Founder/CEO Philip Reece from the CENGN news release

INDRO’S TAKE

We are obviously thrilled to be in this first cohort, and look forward to the opportunity it affords us to develop a humanoid for agricultural use-cases. We’re also appreciative of the work done by the senior Area X.O team with CENGN and others for this to become a reality.

“We’d like to congratulate all the other cohort members, and thank CENGN and its Living Lab Initiative for recognising the significance of all of these projects,” says InDro Founder and CEO Philip Reece. “CENGN is incentivising the innovations of tomorrow right now – along with assistance from the Federal Government’s Strategic Response Fund. And there’s no better site for our work than the Living Lab provided by Area X.O.”

And yes, we’ll keep you posted on that humanoid when the time is right.