Ukraine Hosts Its First International Drone Hackathon

Given Ukraine's proven success with adapting civilian drones to combat via scattered trial and error attempts, a more focused, national effort to apply drone warfare is likely to pay large dividends technologically and militarily. JL 

Samuel Bendett reports in War In the Future:

While Russia was hosting Army-2022 military expo, Ukraine hosted its first international Drone Hackathon on August 26 in order to develop new ideas in military technology for the production of drones.Both Ukraine and Russia are racing to adopt civilian drone technology to combat, hosting events/trainings and hackathons. There is already considerable success in how such UAVs are used, with both combatants seeking an edge in applying DJI and other drones in more novel ways.While Russia was hosting Army-2022 military expo, Ukraine hosted its first international Drone Hackathon on August 26 in order to develop new ideas in military technology for the production of drones.

 

According to official news, 150 participants took part in the development of new technological solutions for the Ukrainian military - among them are design engineers, radio engineers, drone operators and programmers.Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov: "This hackathon is a unique opportunity to join the development of new digital solutions that will help our military. Our common goal is to raise the development of production and technical support for drones to a high level. And not only to buy drones from different companies around the world, but also to create them on an industrial scale in our country. Much depends on you (participants) in how we will develop new (UAV) military-tech projects."

 

Leading Ukrainians and international IT specialists, military and economists joined the first Drone Hackathon as mentors and judges.Dmitry Shymkiv, a member of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Startup Fund: "We are looking for ideas that will make our innovations relevant for the military not in the future, but today. During these three days, we are looking for solutions together with the military."

 

"So that the ideas that teams come up with at this hackathon are implemented at the front as much as possible. For the Ukrainian Startup Fund, this is the first military-tech hackathon. There will be even more. For us, this is strategically important."

 

Both Ukraine and Russia are racing to adopt civilian drone technology to combat, hosting events/trainings and hackathons. There is already considerable success in how such UAVs are used, with both combatants seeking an edge in applying DJI and other drones in more novel ways.