What We Created at European Defence Tech Hackathon

December, Paris — The European Defence Tech Hackathon started with a keynote talk by Antoine Bordes, Vice President, Artificial Intelligence, at Helsing, a key event partner.

Called to bridge the gaps between technologists, the public sector, investors, and operators in dual-use and defence technology, the hackathon gathered truly innovative and motivated tech specialists.

Photos from the hackathon | Credits: babyPRO

34 teams worked on a broad range of challenges prepared by the hackathon organizers and partners – from building underwater reconnaissance systems to the interception of Shahed drones and helicopters, and swarm coordination in GPS-denied environments.

Our team eagerly joined the competition to showcase our expertise and developments. As an active player in the DefenceTech ecosystem, Sigma Software is involved in many activities around it, including co-founding the DefenceTech accelerator program Defenсe Builder with the support of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and participating in events important for this domain, such as the Ukrainian Drone Defence Forum in London, Berlin Security Conference 2024, AUSA 2024 in the US, and others. Participating in the hackathon became a great way to meet like-minded people and discuss current defence challenges.

The team enjoyed intense and creative work fueled by the energy of 170+ people working around.
In just 24 hours, our team developed an idea for an autonomous anti-helicopter air defence system and created a prototype for its AI component. Our tech team, led by Marta Hrechyn, included Kostiantyn Nikolaiev, Vitalii Borodin, Aleksey Pastuhov, Ihar Rubanau, and Ihor Radomyselskiy, who initiated our participation.

Ihor Radomyselskiy, Head of Defence in IT at Sigma Software, shares:

“Sigma Software actively began engaging in defence projects in 2014, following the onset of the first overt military aggression against Ukraine. Many of our talented programmers are currently serving in the armed forces. We have extensive experience developing a wide range of software for defence needs and supporting our partners in various countries in this domain.

Our goal at the hackathon was to immerse ourselves in the dynamic and creative environment of developing new defence products. The organizers did an outstanding job of bringing together technical representatives from major defence companies and young talents with brilliant ideas in one place.

We developed our prototype and are very proud of what we envisioned and created. But this is just the beginning—we are committed to ensuring our prototype soon delivers tangible benefits on the battlefield, helping to bring peace to the people of free and democratic Ukraine and to the countries that share our values.”

The team is going to work on the concept created during the hackathon and develop it into a startup.

Photos from the hackathon | Credits: babyPRO

Active industry builders joined as on-site and online mentors, answering questions and giving feedback directly to the teams: Max Makarchuk from BRAVE1, Enrique Munoz de Cote from Mutable Tactics, Kateryna Bezsudna and Maksym Cherkis from Defence Builder, Kyrylo K from Quantum Systems, Bryan Sardoch, Tom Palmaers, Andreas Kröpfl, Ties Klinkhamer, Miel Van Den Brekel, Piotr Andrzej Oszytko, and many others.

It was great to see among the event’s supporters and mentors the representatives of the Ukrainian Defence ecosystem: the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and BRAVE1 from the governmental side, alongside the Defence Builder accelerator that Sigma Software launched together with partners earlier this year.

Together, we can join our efforts to create significantly faster, more efficient, and more powerful defence systems!

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