The City of Calgary has extended its eduroam reach — the secure Wi-Fi service for the global research and higher education community — to its Wave Tech Centre (Wave). This will give the thousands of post-secondary students and researchers from both within Calgary, and abroad, a more secure and seamless connection to high-speed internet when working on advanced municipal projects in this high-tech space.
This connection is part of a growing network of public spaces in the city that are propelling learning and innovation — reinforcing Calgary’s position as a hub for technology and education, while supporting digital equity.
A secure entry point for digital innovation
The eduroam service is available in more than 100 countries and 30,000 locations worldwide, including several sites within Calgary, such as the international airport, City Hall, and Platform Calgary.
Developed within the global Research & Education Network community, eduroam allows seamless Wi-Fi connectivity for students, researchers, and staff from participating higher-ed institutions — whether they are on their campus, or visiting other participating institutions and community sites. Upon entering an eduroam-enabled space, the linked phones or laptops will immediately sign on to a secure internet connection.
“The greatest value of having eduroam at Wave is its ability to break down barriers when working with students and researchers from different institutions,” says David Basto, IT Project Manager with The City’s Smart Cities team. “It creates a frictionless environment for these visitors, as they can come here to work with our teams and our equipment, and still easily access the virtualized software available through their school.”
“This creates an exciting opportunity for us to build or test new services that will benefit Calgarians, utilizing the knowledge and strengths of a global network of students.”
Advanced technologies meet advanced networking
Wave was launched in 2024 to provide a safe experimentation space for City innovators to work with post-secondary institutions, non-profits, and government agencies to explore how to make life better for Calgarians using innovative technology. In particular, the space hosts resources to explore technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), automation/robotics, digital fabrication, and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR).
Wave hosts ongoing academic collaborations, including a current joint initiative with University of Calgary researchers to explore “robocraft” and the benefits of leveraging robotic technologies in urban planning or for municipal solutions. The Smart Cities team also hires both co-op and summer students, and welcomes visiting scholars such as the Morehead Cain Scholars from the University of North Carolina, who are here for the summer.
Having instant access to eduroam within Wave enables those students to gain instant access to high-speed internet, as the building is also connected to Cybera’s network.
Creating a secure web login experience
In Canada, the eduroam service is managed and operated by CANARIE, Cybera’s federal partner in the National Research and Education Network (NREN), which supports more than 40 million eduroam logins per month. The connection comes as CANARIE and its provincial and territorial partners in the NREN, including Cybera in Alberta, look to expand the reach of eduroam to more public spaces.
“Alberta has really embraced eduroam and the value it offers, not only as a tool that helps administrators simplify guest Wi-Fi access or helps students get online faster, but also something that supports digital equity and innovation,” says Barb Carra, President & CEO of Cybera.
This collaborative service is freely available to municipalities around the globe that would like to offer it.
“This just demonstrates the power of community,” adds Carra. “When we work together to build and offer open solutions, we make it that much easier for people with ideas to share them, as well as learn from others, which is an outcome we all benefit from!”
For more information on eduroam, and how to get your institution or municipality eduroam-enabled, contact Cybera’s project management team.
About eduroam
The eduroam service provides simple, easy and secure connectivity to thousands of hotspots across more than 100 countries. It was developed by the pan-European Research and Education Network organization, GÉANT, to eliminate the administrative effort of offering secure internet access to staff and visitors.
Previously, this required allocating extra resources to either providing and supporting temporary login accounts on a person-by-person basis (which can be time-consuming and expensive), or offering the use of public guest accounts, which come with their own security vulnerabilities. eduroam allows higher education students, researchers, and staff to seamlessly connect automatically using their home institution’s login credentials as they roam around the globe.
eduroam is based on the most secure encryption and authentication standards available, far exceeding the security of typical commercial hotspots. The platform allows any user from an eduroam participating site to get network access at any institution connected to eduroam.
For more information, visit: https://eduroam.org/