For the first time, NATO has allowed developers and scientists from Ukraine to participate in the NATO Innovation Challenge, a hackathon aimed at addressing common threats to NATO member states.
This is reported by the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Ukrinform reports.
The event will take place on March 27 in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz.
You can also join it online.
The theme of the 2025 hackathon is countering guided aerial bombs (GAB).
The NATO Innovation Challenge is a hackathon organized by the NATO Innovation Hub (NATO’s Joint Transformation Command) and Allied member states.
As the Ministry of Defense emphasized, the competition provides an opportunity for scientific associations, individual innovators or startups to prove themselves and aims to expand NATO’s cooperation with industry representatives.
“Enemy GABs are one of the biggest threats to the Ukrainian military on the contact line and Ukrainian cities. It is important that this topic is the key one for the next NATO hackathon. This proves that we are in the same security context as the Alliance,” Deputy Defense Minister Valeriy Churkin emphasized.
The Ministry of Defense noted that previously, only representatives of NATO member states could participate in the NATO Innovation Challenge. This year, representatives of Ukraine were allowed to participate.
Applications can be submitted until March 13. It must meet certain criteria. The criteria are available on the event’s website.
The main thing is that the proposed solution must be relevant to the problem, innovative and realistic, the Ministry of Defense emphasized.
Each proposed solution will be evaluated according to judging criteria: relevance to the problem, innovative approach, usability, integration and compatibility, portability, scalability, reliability, cost and resource efficiency, security and data protection, and impact assessment.
Ukraine has long faced the problem of countering enemy GABs at the front, and it is still relevant today, despite some solutions that have been invented, the Defense Ministry emphasized.
The Ministry called on Ukrainian inventors, innovators, scientists and representatives of the defense industry to participate in the NATO hackathon.
To register, follow the link.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, according to Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology Development and Minister of Digital Transformation, Ukraine already has 19 companies producing missiles of various modifications, from small ones for drones to ballistic and cruise missiles.
Source: Ukraine to participate in NATO hackathon for first time
