Final week, the UK introduced its largest ever navy assist bundle for Ukraine. The invoice takes the U.Okay.’s whole assist for this monetary yr to £3 billion — not fairly the $50 billion the US pledged just lately, however nonetheless substantial.
However whereas most of these funds will probably be spent on very conventional navy {hardware}, a brand new tech initiative launched final weekend was aimed toward enhancing Ukraine’s uneven warfare capabilities in opposition to Russia. In reality, the London Protection Tech Hackathon was the first-ever occasion to carry collectively a number of the UK’s brightest minds in know-how, enterprise capital, and nationwide safety in a navy setting. The thought was to hack collectively concepts to each help Ukraine and in addition to create a much more porous layer between the worlds of fast-paced civilian tech and the very completely different world of the navy.
Put collectively by Alex Fitzgerald of Skyral and Richard Go of Future Forces, the 2 had been joined by co-organizers that included the Honourable Artillery Firm, Apollo Protection, Lambda Automata and D3 VC amongst others.
The occasion introduced collectively builders expert in each {hardware} and software program to foster innovation in protection, nationwide safety, and deeptech. There was a key deal with drones and their functions on the battlefield, each the {hardware} and the digital techniques wanted to fly them to their targets and counter-drone techniques.
As most observers of the battle have identified, this battle has taken on a totally new dimension in comparison with earlier wars. At the moment, drones and digital countermeasures are the order of the day, as Ukraine has endeavored to combat off Russia, a a lot bigger aggressor, with uneven strategies.
Fitzgerald instructed me: “There are three groups of people coming to these events. There’s the builders, investors, and the military. I think for everyone, it’s trying to convince their colleagues to think more about defense technology as an option to either build or invest in.”
He defined that there have been two essential tracks of labor: digital warfare and drone or aerial techniques: “There’s an acronym I learned from someone cleverer than me, which is that the future of defense technologies comes small, cheap and uncrewed.”
He defined that one essential goal was to get individuals who had historically not been concerned in protection both constructing for or investing in protection: “We’ve got people like the NATO Innovation Fund, the UK National Security Strategic Investment Fund. So yeah, it’s a mix of people who already invest in defense or who haven’t thought about investing before.”
He selected the hackathon format as a result of “the focus is on getting stuff done. Get actual builders, not to just talk about building, because that’s actually where most of the innovation is happening.”
One of many inspirations for the occasion was the latest El Segundo, Calif., protection tech hackathon in February of this yr.
“I think the key thing with military technology is making it as easy to use and as powerful as some of the the consumer technology that’s been built,” mentioned Fitzgerald “There’s the classic line, ‘There’s more AI in a snap in Snapchat than there is often some most modern military systems.’”
Additionally attending the occasion was Catarina Buchatskiy, representing Apollo Protection. As engineers pored over cameras, Starlinks, and drones, she instructed me: “Defense tech is a difficult industry to enter. And it’s a difficult market to break into, for obvious reasons. We’ve found Hackathons an extremely exciting way for people to get involved because defense technology can seem like a giant black box of contracts that take 10 years, and technologies that are built [are often] hidden from the public eye. At a hackathon, you have 24 hours. Make something really cool.”
Interceptor accomplished
She mentioned the agency had seen “a lot of success” with the El Segundo occasion.
“We just realized that if people think it’s something that’s accessible to them [and] can do something quickly and make an impact, they want to participate,” she instructed me.
Buchatskiy, who’s Ukrainian, additionally spoke powerfully about Ukraine: “These are very real things to me. When I say that I need a drone detector, it’s because I’m looking at one outside my window that we didn’t detect in time and it is going to kill my neighbor. That is the reality that we face.”
She added that it’s vital for hackathon attendees to know “that they’re building for someone and this could actually save my family’s life.”
Regardless of the controversy surrounding protection know-how in some quarters, she added, “To be involved in technology is to be interested in a better future. And I really, truly can’t think of a more interesting and better future than one that’s safe and one where we can guarantee peace.”
NATO, within the form of the NATO Funding Fund, a fund with a billion euros to spend money on protection tech over the following few years, was additionally represented.
Fund companion Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky instructed me the fund was set as much as again startups “that bolster our collective defense security and resilience. We invest in dual-use deep tech, but the fund was conceived before the war in Ukraine. The conflict has now very much impacted our investment thesis and we’re keen to invest in defense technologies that can make Europe safer and more secure.”
However why was NATO funding a hackathon?
“I think defense tech is new to a lot of a lot of founders and a lot of developers,” Schneider-Sikorsky mentioned. “It’s not that easy for them to understand the problem statements and the challenges and also to get access to the end users.”
He mentioned the hackathon format significantly lends itself to that: “It would normally, for many founders, take them months if not years to get in touch with the right people at defense ministries, and a lot of them are here today. So hopefully it will accelerate things substantially.”
One other attending investor, Alex Flamant from HCVC, instructed me: “There was a need for people in Europe to invest in proper defense technologies. It seemed from the investor standpoint, there’s restrictions around certain investors investing. One of the goals of this is to demystify what a lot of this is amongst young builders, and really to get people more aligned with the big mission that we’re all on.”
Machine studying specialist was there to deal with drone detection: “That’s in our machine vision and object detection knowledge. Ukraine are fighting for the whole of Europe at the moment and obviously the UK is pivotal to that. It’s essential that we that we ally with them and utilize what we have to help.”
The hackthon got here at a time of elevated rigidity round the usage of applied sciences in protection.
Google just lately fired 28 workers after their sit-in protest over the controversial Undertaking Nimbus contract with Israel, as an illustration.
Nonetheless, protection is clearly rising up the tech agenda.
Anduril just lately moved forward in a Pentagon program to develop unmanned fighter jets, and extra broadly as we realized final yr, enterprise capital is opening the gates for protection tech.
And within the UK, there may be a lot speak about how high-powered lasers may very well be among the many subsequent wave of weapons. The DragonFire weapon is alleged to be exact sufficient to hit a £1 coin from a kilometre away, based on the MoD, and price barely $15 to fireplace.
The tasks to emerge from the hackathon could not have been not fairly so sci-fi, however they had been fairly rattling shut. How a couple of “High Speed Interceptor to take down Orlan Drones”? And at the least they’re more likely to be deployed rather a lot prior to a laser gun.
