Time to Accelerate European Defense Innovation

Join us and 100+ hackers from across Europe and beyond for the European Defense Tech Hackathon, taking place on February 20-22, 2025, in London, UK.

Connect with fellow defense innovators, meet potential co-founders, and build projects with real-world impact that could save lives.

We’ll bring challenges rooted in pressing defense and security problems, and you’re welcome to bring your own ideas.

Throughout the event, you’ll get hands-on guidance from seasoned mentors—and after the hackathon, we’ll help you take your project closer to real-world deployment 🚀

Goals

1. Solve urgent defense and security challenges: Each hackathon features a fresh set of challenges sourced directly from frontline partners in Ukraine, the UK, and across the EU—driven by real needs, not theory.

2. Launch new careers and companies: Whether you're breaking into the defense sector or building your own product and company, we connect you with jobs, funding, and pathways toward real-world deployment.

3. Strengthen Europe through defense innovation: Here is where Europe's top talent meets the most pressing threats. By building and shipping, we demonstrate what a fast, capable, and resilient European defense ecosystem looks like.

Visitors

To give participants time and space to focus on their projects, we'll have no visitors during the hackathon. If you're curious about the outcomes and what the teams have built, please sign up as a visitor for our demo day on Sunday.

Agenda

Friday, February 20, 2026

Kick-off Day

12:00 - Doors open, Networking

13:00 - Welcome by Organizers, Presentation of Mentors and Challenges

14:00 - Start of Hacking, last-minute team formation

23:00 - Doors close

Saturday, February 21, 2026

08:00 - Doors open

Hacking continues all day

23:00 - Doors close

Sunday, February 22, 2026

08:00 - Doors open

10:00 - Testing of Presentations

12:00 - End of Hacking

Demo Day (Open to Visitors)

13:00 - Pitches of the winning teams

15:00 - Award Ceremony

15:30 - After-party & Networking