From 11 to 18 March 2025, NATO and the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) brought together more than 60 companies from across the Alliance to compete in the first NATO Innovation Hackathon. The aim was to uncover new technological solutions to improve intelligence gathering and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and electronic warfare system detection, including in degraded visual environments, such as at night.
Challenges run during the competition were directly drawn from those faced daily in war zones such as Ukraine. To address these challenges, contestants were assisted by mentors from DIANA and the Ukrainian innovation ecosystem.
The hackathon rewarded ten companies for their proposed technological solutions in areas such as AI, acoustic sensors, robotics and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) detection. In addition to up to 20,000 EUR funding, the winning teams were also offered the opportunity to further engage with DIANA.
The NATO Innovation Hackathon underscores NATO’s commitment to accelerating the development and adoption of innovative defence technologies. It also contributes to the implementation of the NATO-Ukraine Innovation Cooperation Roadmap and actively supports Ukraine’s needs from the battlefield.
Source: NATO