NATO Hackathon on countering FPV on fiber optics collects record number of proposals, quarter from Ukraine

Some 162 proposals have been submitted to the 16th NATO International Innovation Competition, 42 of them from Ukrainian participants, the finalists of the competition will be announced on June 20 in Tallinn, the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine said.

"Developers have submitted 162 proposals to the NATO International Innovation Competition organized by the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Center (JATEC) dedicated to combating FPV drones controlled via fiber optics," the Ministry of Defense said in a statement on its website on Wednesday.

It is noted that this number of applications for participation in the 16th NATO Innovation Challenge has become an absolute record in the entire history of NATO innovation hackathons. "Among the applications are 42 draft solutions from Ukrainian developers, which confirms the high level of development of defense technologies, despite the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine," the ministry said.

According to Director of JATEC Program Implementation Valeriy Vyshnivsky, Ukraine's participation gives domestic developers the opportunity to assert themselves at the NATO level. "This significantly increases technological interoperability between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and NATO forces, which is key to collective security," he said.

Innovation competitions are held under the leadership of NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT). This year, JATEC has already held a hackathon on countering guided aerial bombs (CAB), where Ukrainian experts joined the jury for the first time.

The current competition focuses on finding technologies that can effectively counter FPV drones, which demonstrate exceptional resistance to electronic warfare.

NATO Innovation Challenge Coordinator Pierre Delorme said the Innovation Challenge brings together operators, innovators and decision-makers at an early stage of the process to transform battlefield needs into scalable, interoperable solutions. This allows NATO to engage a broad network of startups, academia and industry to implement breakthrough ideas, he said.

It is reported that the evaluation of proposals submitted to the FPV drone countermeasures competition is currently underway. The finalists will be announced on June 20 in Tallinn during a public presentation of the results of this hackathon.

"The winners of the competition will not only receive access to NATO's expert environment, but also new opportunities to integrate their technologies into joint defense initiatives, thereby strengthening the defense capabilities of Ukraine and its NATO allies," the ministry said in the statement.