🚨 1,200 Gathering for Kyiv Defense Tech Week. And Continue Building Across Europe.

Fostering Defense Innovation for European Sovereignty

AuthorAuthor

Janick Bayer & Benjamin Wolba
May 29, 2026

From the Netherlands and Porto to Karlskrona and Prague, hundreds of builders came together at our latest hackathons to work on today’s most urgent defense challenges — from counter-UAS, autonomy, sensing, and resilient comms to battlefield logistics and naval systems.

And for one week, Kyiv became a global meeting point for defense innovation — our Kyiv Defense Tech Week brought together 1,200+ founders, engineers, operators, investors, military leaders, and policymakers from 30+ countries to connect battlefield experience with technology, funding, and industrial capacity.

Now it’s time to carry this momentum across Europe 🚀🇪🇺

From Paris before Eurosatory, our anniversary hackathons in Munich and London, to Rome and the first European Defense Tech Festival near Berlin: We’ll continue bringing hundreds of new people into defense to help create hundreds of new defense tech companies.

Watch what we’ve been building:
https://www.youtube.com/@EuropeanDefenseTech

Upcoming EDTH Events

🇫🇷 Paris, France | June 12-14, 2026

Right before Eurosatory, we’re bringing the European Defense Tech Hackathon back to Paris.

Together with the team behind the Adopt AI Summit at Artefact, 150+ builders will spend one weekend tackling some of today’s hardest defense challenges — from countering next-generation drones to building resilient comms for contested environments.

🇩🇪 Munich, Germany & 🇬🇧 London, UK | June 26–28, 2026

Two years later, we’re coming back to where everything started: Munich 🇩🇪 (and in addition: London 🇬🇧)

On June 26–28, 200+ builders from across Europe will join the European Defense Tech Hackathon to work on the next generation of defense technologies — with operators, investors, and industry experts providing direct feedback.

And this time, we’re going bigger: one weekend, two locations — Munich and London — connected live.

🇮🇹 Rome, Italy | July 3–5, 2026

Rome joins the European Defense Tech Hackathon series 🇮🇹

On July 3–5, 150+ builders from across Europe will come together to tackle some of today’s most urgent defense challenges — from counter-UAS and autonomous systems to SIGINT and resilient communications in denied environments.

Investing in Europe’s New Security Stack

Join us for an evening bringing together LPs and GPs investing in the future of European defense tech.

​This is not another conversation about why defense and security matter. We’ll focus on where the market is going: emerging managers, new investment theses, and the opportunities created by Europe’s rapidly evolving threat landscape.

As an informal side event to SuperVenture, we'll bring together selected fund managers, family offices, institutional investors, and strategic LPs.

If you’re an investor, GP, LP, or angel investor, please join us: https://luma.com/new-security-stack-2026

🚨 Europe’s Largest Gathering of Defense Tech Builders

​For almost two years, we’ve been running defense tech hackathons all across Europe and beyond...

Hundreds of builders, operators, founders, engineers, investors, and military personnel came, and dozens of new projects and companies emerged. Now it’s time to see what they’ve actually built!

​On August 20–23, we’re hosting the first European Defense Tech Festival together with HANGAR: Start-up Zentrum 

📍 Secret Airfield near Berlin, Germany | August 20–23, 2026
Event-Website and Registration: https://luma.com/edtf-2026

— check out our announcement post for some more info:

Upcoming Online Events (as part of our EDTH Community)

EDTH x Keen Venture Partners: From Project to Product (June 4): https://luma.com/edth-webinar-project-to-product

Get free access to all EDTH Community events for one year, including hackathon demo days, webinars, networking sessions, and our flagship New Defense Summit.

Join our EDTH Community — https://eurodefense.tech/community

How a Ukrainian and a Swiss Soldier Built a Startup

At our European Defense Tech Hackathon in Warsaw last December 2025, Swiss officer and software developer Fabio Hamilos-Keller met Mykyta Puz from Ukraine’s Azov Brigade — and together they started building Caslog.

What began as a weekend prototype is now becoming a real solution for one of the battlefield’s biggest challenges: keeping critical medical information with wounded soldiers throughout evacuation.

A great example of why we bring builders and operators into the same room: ideas turn into products, and products move toward deployment!

New Age Defence Conference and EDTH-Member Access

The New Age Defence flagship conference is coming to Berlin on June 8 🇩🇪

Bringing together founders, operators, military leaders, investors, policymakers, and defense innovators, the event focuses on one core question: how do we build a European defense ecosystem ready for the realities of today’s battlefield?

We’re excited to support New Age Defence as an information partner — and our co-founder Benjamin Wolba will also join as a speaker 🦾

The event is invite-only, but we secured a limited number of invitations for the EDTH ecosystem. If you’d like to join, request access and enter “EDTH” in the “Invited by” field.

Supporting the 411 UAS Hawks

“Through Dust to Victory” hit its target 🚀

Thanks to everyone who donated and shared the campaign, a NAFO Truck 3.0 for the 411 UAS Hawks will now be delivered together with HELP99 and 50 States for Ukraine.

The fundraiser stays open until June 1, so let’s keep pushing and go beyond the original goal. Every additional contribution directly supports the people working and fighting on the frontlines every day 🇺🇦

Prize Contest ‘Sentinel Strike Challenge’

EDA, through its Hub for European Defence Innovation (HEDI), has launched the Loitering Munitions “Sentinel Strike Challenge”, a Prize Contest designed to support the operational experimentation of emerging loitering munition capabilities in Europe.