The Wireless Innovation Laboratory (WILAB) will be an innovation platform with a focus on next generation wireless technologies, platforms, and solutions. Focusing on industrial challenges, WILAB will provide a co-creation ecosystem, combing industry experience with research expertise, critical research infrastructure and immersive opportunities within industry.
Working with a range of different partners, WILAB will have three major points of focus:
- Accelerated co-creation of innovative solutions through an innovation accelerator platform established with industry partners and key stakeholders, leveraging the university’s research competencies
- Lighthouse projects delivering sector-wide benefits in close collaboration with an ecosystem of stakeholders and multidisciplinary research teams to tackle key challenges to technology uptake
- Creating a digital talent pipeline with innovation skills and mindset and industry readiness through programs of innovation fellowships (internships), enhanced research higher degree training, and reskilling through Micro Certification.
WILAB is a new initiative that has formed to enable frontier technologies and develop a talent pipeline of graduates with an innovation mindset to accelerate the uptake of wireless communications in modern society.
Through its partnerships and research initiatives, WILAB is expected to rapidly grow and evolve to address current and future wireless communications needs.
WILAB is a multi-institutional collaboration involving the University of Melbourne and the RMIT University.
- The University of Melbourne
- RMIT University
Partners
WILAB will become an enduring activity, developing strong partnerships with a broad range of stakeholders in telecommunications and the broader wireless communications industry.
Situated at Melbourne Connect, WILAB will partner with network providers, technology suppliers, government, end-users and other stakeholders to co-create innovative solutions and build sovereign capability. It will foster an enduring relationship between the communications and innovation sectors, creating a unique constellation of cross-disciplinary researchers, network and technology specialists, sector representatives and government. Innovative technology creations will deliver substantive productivity improvements across key sectors including defence and national security, digital health, construction and infrastructure development, intelligent logistics, smart agriculture, food technologies, and digital mining by accelerating adoption of Industry 4.0.
Existing testbeds in key sectors will be leveraged to support innovation in a fail-safe environment. Flagship lighthouse projects will provide exemplars defining technology and business models to accelerate adoption and de-risk broader uptake of 5G.
WILAB is seeking industry partnerships involving co-investment to identify and accelerate innovation activities that will be leveraged through government investment.