🚨 Wrapping Up 2025, Global Expansion, and Three EDTH Alumni Participating in NATO DIANA 2026

Fostering Defense Innovation for European Sovereignty

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Janick Bayer & Benjamin Wolba
December 11, 2025

We just wrapped up our final hackathons of 2025:

Our first-ever hackathon in Switzerland, where engineers, military personnel, procurement officials, and politicians from the Green Liberal Party worked side by side for the first time.

And then Warsaw, one of our strongest hackathons yet, where teams built fully functional demos in just 48 hours, with several returning teams from our Warsaw hackathon last April, demonstrating mature prototypes.

We went from three events last year to 25 this year (hackathons, our annual conference, field testing near Lviv), plus many more meetups, drone-building workshops, and webinars.

We’re on track to host more than 50 events globally next year.

At the same time, we see dozens of EDTH Alumni continuing after our hackathons, and we'll compile a report for January 2026 about the outcomes of EDTH in 2025. Just this much: we got breaking news that three of our alumni made it into NATO DIANA!

Check out our event calendar to stay posted: https://luma.com/eurodefensetech 

Going Global in 2026

📍 Canberra, Australia | Feb 6–8, 2026

For the first time, we’re going global—for our first hackathon in Australia!

From protecting the Indo-Pacific to developing next-generation counter-drone defense technologies to protect critical infrastructure, we’ll be tackling the most urgent security challenges Australia faces today.

📍 Munich, Germany | Feb 12–15, 2026

While world leaders will talk about global security challenges at the Munich Security Conference, we’ll roll up our sleeves and be busy building prototypes to address. those security challenges.

We’re back once again with Europe’s largest defense tech hackathon—this February, in Munich.

👀 Even More Events

📍 Athens, Greece | Feb 27–March 1, 2026

EDTH keeps expanding across Europe, and this time to Greece: Join us for the European Defense Tech Hackathon on February 27–March 1, 2025, in Athens.

📍 Tallinn, Estonia | Feb 27–March 1, 2026

​​After our successful Defense Hack Day back in September, we will return to Tallinn with a full-fledged 3-day hackathon. ​​​We're thrilled to co-host the event with Tehnopol, the largest science and business park in the Baltic states.

📍 Netherlands | April 10-12, 2026

We’re excited to be partnering with Artillerie Inrichtingen Armaments for another hackathon in the Netherlands on April 10–12, 2026.

Upcoming Webinars (as part of our Unlimited Community)

​From the European Defense Community:

European Critical Infrastructure Hackathon (Jan 23–25, Gdańsk, Poland 🇵🇱)

Not a defense hackathon, but absolutely a critical one.

200+ engineers, designers, and researchers will prototype Europe’s next-generation sovereign communication tools, resilient energy & offshore systems, and space-tech infrastructure. We’re thrilled to co-organize the event with VIDOC Security Lab!

Info & registration: https://www.criticalhackathon.com

AI in Defence Summit 2026 (Feb 2, 2026, Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪)

Next up in Europe’s defense innovation push: the AI in Defence Summit 2026, with support from the European Innovation Council.

We have discount codes waiting for you:

  • EDTHSU50 — 20% off Defense Startup tickets

  • EDTHGA20 — 20% off General Attendance tickets

Three EDTH Alumni Are Part of NATO DIANA 2026

The new NATO DIANA 2026 Cohort just been announced here, and three alumni from our hackathons made it in 🥳 

👉 GutSee Health (Warsaw Hackathon April 2025) — Precision phage therapy to treat battlefield infections
👉 Aereus (Munich Hackathon Feb 2025) — AI-powered multimodal data engine for scene intelligence
👉 AegisX (Munich Hackathon Feb 2025, Amsterdam Hackathon March 2025, Copenhagen Hackathon Aug 2025) — Next-generation, single-operator drone-detection radar for low-flying fibre-optic drones

Plus, it's amazing to see several of our EDTH partners join the cohort:
• Beechat Network Systems 
• Vidoc Security Lab
• Delian Alliance Industries
• C2Grid

The momentum around defense innovation in Europe and across the Alliance keeps accelerating—way to go for this cohort!

The Word is Spreading

In the newest article of Defender Media, they are featuring Dominic Surano, Director of Special Projects at Nordic Air Defence (NAD).

Dominic shares his insights on the rise of interceptor drones and the impressive Kreuger series developed by NAD.

Defender Media will continue to interview partners, founders, investors, and EDTH alumni to highlight the people and ideas shaping European defense tech.

Launching the #1 Newsletter for Defence and Space Tech Commercialisation in Europe With Deep Tech Momentum

We’re launching Sovereign Systems with Deep Tech Momentum—a biweekly deep dive into the bold ideas, industrial shifts, and technologies shaping Europe’s sovereignty in defense and space 🚀

If you’re building, investing in, or shaping the future of European defense and space tech, this is for you—subscribe now:

Huge thanks to Paolo Trecate, Rita de Almeida Russo, Charles Andreo, Martin Schilling, and the Deep Tech Momentum team for making it happen!

Swiss Press Covers Our First-Ever Hackathon in Switzerland

Der Tagesanzeiger, one of Switzerland’s major newspapers, ran a full feature on our first Defense Tech Hackathon in Winterthur. The article stresses the sense of urgency in the room, from the minute of silence for fallen Ukrainian soldiers to teams working on frontline problems like fiber-guided Russian drones.

One participant put it plainly: “For peace, you have to do more than plant flowers.”

2025 Working with Defence & Security Report

We are excited to support the Working with Defence & Security Report 2025, a founder-led study exploring how startups are building and scaling in NATO and allied defense markets. Featuring stories from teams across Europe, the UK, the Nordics, the Balkans, and the US, it focuses on a new generation of post-2022 founders, while sharing insights on early traction, procurement, and overcoming structural hurdles in the evolving defense-tech landscape.

Oleksandr, an active soldier in Ukraine’s Air Defence Division, mentored at our hackathon in London. A Russian missile destroyed his unit’s R&D facility, where they prototype the systems that keep civilians safe and generate knowledge crucial for European air defense.

Together with HELP99 and Resilience Media, we aim to raise €35,000 to rebuild the facility. Donations of €100+ receive a limited Ukrainian-made NAFO patch, and donors of £2,500+ will be invited to a private dinner with Oleksandr and any colleagues who can visit.

17Tech launched its Defence Accelerator, a 4-month program designed to support defense startups in advancing their operational capabilities. You have the chance to collaborate with Finnish, European, Ukrainian, and NATO stakeholders to test and validate your products in real operational contexts. Applications close this December 15, with the program starting late January 2026 alongside Defence Builder, Ukraine’s leading defense tech accelerator.

Read more at https://17tech.fi

Defense Tech Monthly — November

This edition covers how Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign has scaled into an industrial effort, using systems like Bars, Lyutiy, and Flamingo to degrade Russian refining capacity by 10%. The report also spotlights significant UGV progress, including a ground robot that evacuated a wounded soldier 64 km behind enemy lines.

It additionally explores Ukraine’s expanding drone capabilities, like submersible torpedoes in the Black Sea and an FP-1 drone downing a Russian Mi-8, and Russia’s latest systems, including the Courier UGV and Shahed-107.