War 3.0: Europe’s smart defence challenge

We are under constant threat and attack. Ukraine every day, but also Europe is under attack, be it targeting critical infrastructure, be it targeting our cyber security, be it targeting us personally. We need to develop the means to be able to defend ourselves

ultra which can locate the sub and invisible objects More and more of the stuff localiser des objets sous et terrestres invisibles De plus en plus de start mises sur les technologies appliqu la d

comme en témoigne le Hackathon qui se déroule autour de moi, un rassemblement de développeurs venus d'Europe et d'ailleurs

pour présenter leurs projets dans ce centre dédié à l'innovation à Varsovie

I'm Benjamin, co-founder and co-organizer of the European Defense Tech Hub. We're building a network for defense innovation to inspire young folks to work on solutions that can save lives, to work on urgent security challenges

Europe needs to be waking up. We need to have the means to defend ourselves

Financé par des fonds publics polonais et des sponsors privés, l'événement était le sixième du genre organisé par le réseau à travers l'Europe

Objectif des participants, mettre au point en 24 heures des projets présentés à un jury à l'issue du hackathon

Guys, what are you working on? We are working to find the direction of the enemy by using software defined radios to find where is the signals coming to identify from which positions enemy controlling devices

This team combines artificial intelligence to phagic therapy which uses viruses to eliminate the bacteria

to provide Ukrainian soldiers rapid treatments against infections. We are using machine learning to match specific bacteria with the right virus

And then that happens in minutes. Then we can produce that cocktail and deliver it directly to the soldier Estudiant ing scientifique cr de start quelques 200 hackers de nombreuses nationalit venus leur frais l d week

Parmi eux, de nombreux Ukrainiens. It can go underwater, it will be silenced

It can also control it by joystick. I think that's the direction that Europe should take

Go towards autonomous systems because that's the future, that's the way you can save actual people if the war happens

But the robots will fight, not people. We created guided dropping munitions

that has some control surfaces and visual navigation. and will go directly to the target because we want the war in Ukraine will end as soon as possible

We really believe that this project can contribute a lot in our victory. Like all of these, these Portuguese developers are coming to relever a technological challenge but also to defend their ideas

In the front line there is no GPS information so effectively the drone pilots are blind

We are creating a solution using some AI and image comparison so that the operators can know where the drone is, even though that they don't have access to the GPS signal

We have expertise in the areas of systems engineering, navigation and computer vision

But above all, this is something that aligns perfectly with our values

We're fighting for what we believe in, our freedom as Europeans. The front line from Ukraine is the front lines from Europe

It's the front line from democracy. We are really showing us that the operational theater is really everywhere in cyberspace and in space as well

In the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the jamming of space capabilities and the use of supporting capabilities from space

have created a completely different dynamics on the battlefield. Through the Hub for UDefense Innovation, we are trying to stimulate faster adoption of these technologies to respond to these new threats

The EU wants to boost its defense, yet it is lagging behind, including in the field of

defense innovation. So what are the hurdles that need to be addressed

We see several hurdles that are interconnected. For instance, the fragmentation in terms of

defense investments across the member states or the division between civil technology that

is going actually much faster paced than defense technology. Last but not least, access to capital

remains an issue, especially for the more up and coming defense startups and new companies

to really find investors that are interested in accessing the defense market. Plus defense

spending alone, it's not yet sufficient or it's not paced at the right timing. So what we really

need to do is to coordinate and channel these defense investments more and more towards