ICELab

Shared Services Canada's (SSC) Innovation, Collaboration and Experimentation Lab (ICELab) is home to several innovative IT projects for SSC and its partners and clients. As part of SSC's journey toward an enterprise approach through Digital Together, we continue to seek opportunities for innovation in our work. The ICELab team, as part of our CTO branch, undertakes some of these initiatives through its work.

Initially, this team was focused on strategy and white papers for research and development. They soon realized, however, that there was also a need to test the technologies. SSC then shifted the lab's mandate to focus on testing components.

The ICELab's laboratory is in Ottawa and currently has multiple technical projects under way and is planning for several others. This is where the team tests emerging technologies such as augmented reality, Internet of Things sensors, zero trust architecture and remote connectivity. The lab, which has networking and testing capabilities, is:‌

• a vendor‑agnostic space that aims to evaluate multiple solutions within a given technology area
• a fluid environment designed to handle multiple tenants

The ICELab collaborates with SSC's Innovative Solutions Canada (ISC) program, an Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada procurement initiative. Its challenge approach to procurement promotes the development and adoption of innovative technologies in Canada. ISC also puts the GC first in line to purchase the product.

Participating federal departments present problems for small Canadian businesses to solve. Once a department develops and issues a challenge, Canadian small businesses and innovators can submit ideas that address the problem. These solutions must:

• be new and not currently on the market
• somehow support your departmental mandate

The ICELab team works with Canadian industry and our GC partners and clients to test these innovative products through real‑world use cases to help find potential solutions for real‑world government problems.