At the heart of the Silicon Orchard and our smart city ecosystem is the Curiosity Lab innovation center which houses some of the most groundbreaking startups across the country and the world. This 25,000-square-foot innovation center is separated into two levels that are home to our startups, partners, community resources and more. While we often share visuals of our innovation center, visitors may be aware of the unique offerings our innovation center provides. These offerings are what make our location so attractive for local, national and international companies to join us, and we are always welcoming new startups and partners across all verticals to our ecosystem!
Located in the middle of our 3-mile test loop, the innovation center acts as the brain of our city street of the future. On the top floor, you will find our partner wall and offices, our executive conference room, a full classroom and our IoT Control Room. Here, we are growing partner resources, where for example, our partner T-Mobile is expanding their offices to create an interactive showroom for their groundbreaking IoT devices. Our classroom can be used for presentations, lunch and learns and is used to teach our Coding Bootcamp in partnership with Georgia Tech where we are one of two locations Georgia Tech teaches off-campus. The IoT Control Room is one of the first of its kind in the country, acting as a single pane of glass for city managers to easily keep an eye on our deployed devices along our city street of the future. Here, city managers can view live cameras, lidar, C-V2X feeds and more, that are used to keep our city safe and efficient. The analytics and live feeds allow city managers to make the most educated decisions for our city. Access to use and leverage our city street of the future for testing, our IoT Control Room and communal areas are free to all partners and startups in our ecosystem.
Our second floor houses what we like to call “startup land”. Here is where all our in-house startups and international companies reside, whether that be in private offices, in open community work areas or at our “hot desks”. The flexibility in our workspace allows startups to grow with us once they join the lab, and the open desk area promotes collaboration. This area is often bustling with startups testing new technologies, building new prototypes and more. Right by the community work area is also our state-of-the-art podcast room and two additional conference rooms that are free to use. For those working at hot desks or in the open area, we also have two additional phone booths for individuals to make private calls.
In addition to an inviting lounge area that welcomes our community to engage in foosball, lunch and happy hour conversation, we have our Prototype Prime Workshop. This workshop provides everything from 3D printers and everyday tools to microscopes, and more for our startups. We often find our startups adjusting their prototypes and using the workshop daily. This resource is key to companies of all stages proving out their technologies.
The largest area on the bottom floor is our event space. Outfitted with the latest audio and TV technologies, unique wall art and stage, this event space has the full startup space charm. Curiosity Lab members, outside organizations and more can reserve the space for everything from meetings to conferences, to VC pitching events and more based on your needs – we have even hosted a wedding in this space! This is one of the many areas that promote collaboration between our startups and partners, with multiple Curiosity Lab internal events for everyone to join.
The lab also houses our startup program, aimed at giving startups all the additional resources they need to succeed. Part of our program includes our partner and alternative cloud provider, OVHcloud US, which provides free cloud credits and project-specific technical support to help startups get on the cloud and or scale their environment. In addition, we have the Connected Future Incubator, which is a collaboration between Georgia Tech and our partner T-Mobile aimed to help startups rapidly scale leveraging 5G. Startups will have access to coaches to help with product development, business model development, investor relations and more.
Soon, we will be adding two additional startup program partners that we will be announcing at our startup learning event called Curious Connections, on December 1. Here, we will be bringing new startups, both local and international, into our startup ecosystem, while also educating our current startups on the resources the Curiosity Lab programs provide for them and their companies. Attendees will have access to VCs, industry leaders, unicorns and more. This event is free to register and open to the public. If you are interested in joining our ecosystem, we highly recommend this event!
Find out more about our innovation center offerings for startups and our full startup program here, and details regarding our Curious Connections event here. We hope to see you there!