A new incubator for mobile telecom companies will open in the former York County Courtroom on Queen Street in Fredericton in September, meaning the New Brunswick Capital will soon be home to two co-working spaces for startups.

Gary Stairs, the CEO of Stellar Learning Strategies and Red Hot Learning Co. and driving force behind the incubator, said in an interview that mLab Canada will open Sept. 1 to offer work space to about eight startups at a time. He said the centre will likely take in two cohorts per year, with the aim of eventually having full cohorts of companies engaged in mobile technology. One company that will be in mLab when it opens is First Mobile Education, a private company that Stairs has opened in conjunction with Waterloo, Ont.-based startup ClevrU.

The creation of mLab Canada in downtown Fredericton comes as ACcelr8, another incubation space, is preparing to open in Knowledge Park, closer to the TransCanada Highway. Stairs is on the board of ACcelr8 and he hopes that ACcelr8 Executive Director Sally Ng will become involved in mLab in some way.

“I think there’s going to be some cheerful jostling for startups,” said Stairs, when asked if there were enough new companies for the two centres. “Fredericton is a small city and I think we’re all trying to get used to this concept of incubation.”

The 2,200-square-foot space in the riverside courthouse at 649 Queen St. will include a main floor and mezzanine level, and feature work stations for the participating companies as well as conference areas.

Stairs said mLab will be begin as a non-profit, and he hopes that eventually there will be some funding for the companies that participate, possibly financed through a mix of government programs and private investment.  Stairs’ added that the main purpose of mLab will be to mentor young companies and give them workspace, and that running an in-house funding body is not part of the mission.

Stairs’ other new venture, First Mobile Education, is a for-profit company that will deliver educational material online to people around the world, especially in developing countries, using ClevrU’s technology. ClevrU has created a platform for delivering educational content on to mobile devices, and First Mobile will work to source content from educational institutions that could then be distributed across this platform.

”The new First Mobile Education venture hopes to negotiate with a range of K-12 curriculum, universities, colleges and private sector sources in the region,” said Stairs in a statement. “The intent is to transform our existing high quality educational content and deliver it on a world class mobile platform to considerable emerging markets like China, India and Brazil.”

The goal he said is to provide new sources of revenue for universities, colleges and schools in Atlantic Canada and encourage more students from abroad to come to the region to study.

Stairs’ main company, Stellar RHL, is a corporate training and learning consultancy that has more than 500,000 learners online in 21 languages.