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CENGN Gears Up for Change at the EDCO Conference
On January 30th and 31st, Ontario’s top economic development professionals gathered from across the province at the EDCO Conference in Toronto. They spent their time networking and engaging in discussions with Ontario’s top experts to learn skills that can help sustainably optimize the economic development of their communities
The event was hosted by the Economic Development Council of Ontario (EDCO), an independent, non-profit association with the mission to support and accelerate economic prosperity for Ontario in an eco-friendly way.
CENGN’s Richard Waterhouse, VP of Business Development and Marketing, participated in the event, taking part in the panel ‘Attracting and Scaling Companies in a 5G World – How Municipalities can Leverage Ontario’s Advanced Technology Platform (ATP)’. During this panel, Richard represented the Next Generation Network Program (NGNP), which alongside the Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network, ENCQOR 5G, and IBM Innovation Incubator Project demonstration projects, make up ATP.
The NGNP, jointly run by CENGN and the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), helps the province’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) overcome commercialization barriers for their innovative products and solutions. This comes from expanding CENGN’s capacity to provide these businesses with technical and business support, exposure to our globally recognized ecosystem, third party validation, as well as the ability to benchmark, scale test and functionality test their products and solutions before going to market. The end goal of the program and the ATP is to establish a digital backbone that will drive the growth of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector and increase Ontario’s global competitiveness.
CENGN Talks Optimization with Ontario’s SMEs
The conference shifted gears in the afternoon and scoped in on how SMEs can navigate today’s rapidly expanding tech environment. The ATP panel discussed how SMEs can optimize opportunities and reduce risks to create a successful and long lasting business. This included delving into how businesses can leverage emerging tech and adopt 5G standards to attain next level economic prosperity.
With the current transformation in the digital age, comes huge revenue and business potential for SMEs. During his participation on the panel, Richard shed light on how CENGN’s infrastructure and services can assist municipalities to flourish through disruptive technology. For example, CENGN’s current work with 5G networking will soon be able to assist remote regions in attracting people to their communities with mass communication and connectivity they never had before.
Keeping Pace with the Rapidly Changing Digital Age
CENGN prioritizes staying up to speed on the latest technology and trends. By attending and participating in events like this, we can remain on the leading edge of ICT technology while simultaneously collaborating with our peers and sharing our successes and information to help Canada unlock the high-tech industry’s full potential. We recognize the importance of actively staying involved in the game-changing discussions that will help push Canada to be the #1 global ICT leader.
The next generation of digital infrastructure is rapidly approaching and CENGN will continue to work hard to ensure SMEs are properly prepared to fully utilize the benefits of the transformative next generation networks.
A huge thanks to EDCO for inviting us to participate in this discussion and allowing us to share our insights with the community!
Check out our events page to see where CENGN will be next!
About the Author
CENGN, Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks, drives technology innovation and industry growth through our testbed, technical expertise, talent development, and partner ecosystem. Through our projects, CENGN enables small and medium Canadian Enterprises to test and validate promising technologies, removing barriers to product commercialization and accelerating market growth.
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