Behind the Curtain at Bayview BetaWorks: Ottawa’s Living Lab for Innovation

Walk through the glass doors of Bayview Yards on any given morning and you can feel it — the buzz of ideas colliding.  In one corner, a fully functional prototype built right here in Ottawa is put to the test.

Down the hall, a small team huddles with industry engineers, sketching out solutions in response to fresh customer feedback. Across the lobby, a live tech demo draws a crowd, onlookers leaning in as the latest innovation sparks excitement before their eyes.  

This is what Bayview BetaWorks is all about. Not just another startup program, but a living lab — a place where Ottawa’s boldest innovators get to test, refine, and prove their solutions in real-world conditions.  

“Bayview BetaWorks was built to give founders a testbed where bold ideas meet real-world validation,” says Patrick Kenny, Senior Director of Stakeholder Experience and Strategic Engagement, Invest Ottawa. “Here, startups can test, learn, and scale faster than ever, backed by a connected community that turns innovation into impact.”  

Behind every shiny breakthrough you hear about — whether it’s a clean tech solution, a healthcare tool, or the latest mobility app — there’s usually a founder working through some pretty tough questions.  

Will this thing actually work once it leaves the safety of my laptop or lab? How do I show the value of my product/service/company before I run out of time or money? What will convince an investor that this isn’t just another good idea?  

These are the kinds of crossroads that can stall even the most promising companies. It’s not a lack of vision — it’s that founders often don’t have a safe space to experiment, to test in real conditions, or to get the kind of feedback that helps an idea cross the gap from theory to reality.  

That’s the gap Bayview BetaWorks is designed to fill. It came out of conversations with Ottawa entrepreneurs who kept saying the same thing: advice is great, but what we really need are environments that feel real.  So we built a place where those experiments could happen, where risk feels a little lighter, creativity flows more freely, and momentum doesn’t have to stall.  

What is Bayview BetaWorks?  

Bayview BetaWorks is Ottawa’s living lab for tech startups, a hands-on innovation playground purpose-built for early-stage companies. It’s a space where founders, researchers, and changemakers come together to design, test, and refine new products, services, and systems — all in real-world conditions.  

Through Bayview BetaWorks, companies can benefit from:  

• Live testing environments for real data and real user feedback 
• Proof of concept pilots to validate product-market fit  
• Showcasing opportunities to demo technology to potential clients and investors  
• Community connections to accelerate growth and refine offerings to get investor ready  
• Interactive displays to get noticed by investors, collaborators, and clients  

Apply to Join Bayview BetaWorks Today 

Transforming Ideas into Impact: Bayview Yards Testbed Projects 

JPlug EV Charging Pilot

Bayview Yards partnered with JPlug founder Jorge Pantoja to pilot an agnostic EV charging platform in a real-world setting.

Despite infrastructure challenges in a heritage building, the collaboration enabled 397,146 kWh of charging since April—saving 381 tonnes of CO₂ emissions and setting the stage for JPlug 2.0. 

Innovation Showcase & Demonstration

Bayview Yards launched a live Innovation Showcase where startups and partners—from Yarmand (autonomous lawnmowers) to AirShare (defence tech) to University of Ottawa students (autonomous snowplows)—test and demonstrate technology onsite.

Each demo is livestreamed on Instagram, connecting innovators directly with the community. 

Ecosystem Collisions

Through live demos promoted via the Invest Ottawa Community Calendar and Bayview Yards Meetup Program, startups connect with innovation leaders, sponsors, and policymakers.

Partners like ISED, FedDev Ontario, and Navy Technology Innovation often join, sparking collaborations that lead to pilots, partnerships, and new ideas. 

The 5G & Server Backbone of Bayview BetaWorks Powering Innovation 

One of the biggest backstage power plays supporting Bayview BetaWorks is the infrastructure that CENGN brings to the table—especially its 5G-enabled network and high-performance server ecosystem. CENGN is rolling out eight Living Labs across Canada (including Ontario) with a robust 5G testbed powered by partners such as Ericsson, Nokia, and Rogers that gives startups access to ultra-low latency, high bandwidth wireless connectivity in environments that mirror real-world deployment.

On the server side, CENGN’s infrastructure isn’t just cloud-fluff—it includes data center-grade GPUs, bare-metal servers, and multi-vendor, open-source hardware/white-box servers and switches coupled with an OpenStack-based virtualized setup.

This lets founders not only build and simulate advanced applications (think AI/ML, VR/AR, IoT), but also test them under realistic load, network congestion, and edge-compute scenarios. 

Conclusion: Step Behind the Curtain

At its core, Bayview BetaWorks is more than a program—it’s a living stage where innovation unfolds in real time. From the hum of servers powering next-gen applications, to the lawn where autonomous mowers quietly chart their paths, to the hallway where a founder and a policymaker strike up an unplanned conversation, every corner of Bayview Yards tells a story of bold ideas being tested, challenged, and proven.

The behind-the-scenes moments—sometimes messy, always authentic—are what turn vision into traction and prototypes into impact. And that’s the promise of a true living lab: a place where entrepreneurs don’t just imagine the future, they build it in front of us all. 

Ready to see it for yourself?  

Join Bayview BetaWorks and discover the possibilities within Ottawa’s Living Lab.